Uprooted
by Orrunan
Summary: Naruto makes a good shinobi, but a lousy weapon. Danzo has finally managed to connive Naruto into Root, or so he believes. Naruto, who will now be within reach of his emotionally inept, traumatized, fanatical devotees. What on earth was he thinking?
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue: Danzō-sama wants you!**

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

* * *

Sandaime Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen looked out of his office window at the village below him. The village was alight in orange, golden and red lights, silk paper lanterns, bonfires and fireworks. The Memorial Festival of Yellow Flash was well underway. It had been thirteen years already and he was sure that Minato would have been proud of them. Of how quickly they had recovered and of their newly found acceptance of one Uzumaki Naruto.

Naruto's daring rescue attempt that had ultimately saved him from having to summon Shinigami to force Orochimaru to retreat, defeat of Sabaku no Gaara, part in bringing Tsunade of the Sannin back to the village to heal him (and everyone else still in the hospital) and dragging back one recalcitrant Uchiha Sasuke had earned the boy a lot of goodwill. The scars were still there, but thanks to Naruto's perseverance and patience, as amused as some might have been by the thought of the loud boy possessing any, they were healing. All in all, this had had the potential to be the first enjoyable Memorial Festival of Yellow Flash Naruto had ever attended.

If only Hiruzen didn't need to do what he was about to do. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach that his student's student wouldn't have been proud of him at all.

Turning his back to his window, the aged Hokage glared sadly the offending piece of paperwork to complete before he also could join the crowds below in their celebration. He didn't feel like celebrating, but one of his duties as the Sandaime was to make at least a token appearance. The last document on his desk was the registration request for a new ninja into the Root program run by his onetime rival Danzō. It didn't say Root, of course. Admitting the existence of the illegal ANBU branch would have sent the old man into prison quicker than he could say busted. Danzō was requesting Uzumaki Naruto, the jinchūriki of Kyūbi no Yōko, as his apprentice.

Some people, entirely too many people, thought that the ninja were to be mere tools to their respective villages. That by being emotionless, obedient, ruthless and completely screwed in the head was no reason to call for a therapist, administer happy pills and confiscate every sharp, pointy thing they had, but to promote the nin in question so they could be even more efficient tools. Until they broke and a new one took their place, of course, because all tools break sooner or later.

As inhumane as it was, nine times out of ten those that survived the training turned out superb nin. Of course, one time out of ten Uchiha Itachi happened. For some people this wasn't big enough setback to give up and let humans be humans, and so Sarutobi had to deal with members of his own council hiding Root in their closets among the other skeletons. This was about to change.

"Forgive me, Minato-kun. Please forgive me, Naruto-kun," he whispered as he dipped his pen into the ink in the small jade inkwell and swirled the ink slowly, reluctantly. The desktop under the piece of paper was slightly charred, a memento of one afternoon when Naruto had been eating take-out ramen in his office and decided to warm it with a fireball because it was lukewarm.

At least technically Danzō had to go through the Hokage to bring in new Root members, but that didn't stop him from playing Behind Hokage's Back at the most inconvenient time. The previous year Danzō had tried to recruit half of the graduating class into his "new apprentice program for ninja showing early ANBU potential". Apparently he had hoped that in his rush to get out of the office to buy the new Icha Icha Classics Collection, hardback version with author's autograph, Sarutobi would sign the papers on his desk without looking at all of them. Luckily for the genin-to-be, Jiraiya always sent his old teacher his every publication and Sarutobi had concentrated on his work that afternoon.

He'd had it with the Root. The Root had to go. And so Uzumaki Naruto had to go to the Root.

As they spoke Jiraiya was tattooing a surveillance seal into Naruto's back. It would record every conversation Naruto had during the next two months. Sixty one days. And during those sixty one days Naruto couldn't be allowed to realize one of his precious people hadn't really handed him over to the monster puppetmaster. Naruto was a dreadfully bad liar, for all that shinobi were supposed to be masters of deceit, and this was in all likelihood the best chance Sarutobi had to take care of Danzō machinations once and for all. Naruto believed that the tattoo that was inked to his back that very moment was to help keep Kyūbi in check. He also believed he had been betrayed.

"Sixty one days. I pray your endurance will carry you through one more time. I'm so sorry," Sarutobi sighed aloud. And with a hand that trembled slightly he signed the document.

* * *

In his office Sarutobi Hiruzen wallowed in guilt as magnificent fireworks dyed it golden and red, again and again, and cheerful music played outside. He wallowed in vain. Despite his inability to tell a convincing lie Naruto was a good shinobi, but he was to make a horrible weapon. Not terrifying-horrible, just plain lousy-horrible.

Danzō's reign over his troops, any of whom could have had him killed simply by exposing their existence, was based on five things. One, choosing the candidates either when they were very young or choosing someone already dysfunctional. Two, the presence of a perceived threat to their well-being and the knowledge that the he would carry out the threat. Three, the presence of a perceived small kindness, but never enough to make them emotional of course. Four, isolation from perspectives other than those of his own, and five, their perceived inability to escape the situation.

This was Naruto: stubborn, fearless, extremely independent, due to being emancipated at the tender age of ten when the orphanage felt they couldn't handle him anymore, and sufficiently irreverent to cover the Hokage monument with graffiti. His ability to reach out to people any other would have judged as hopeless cases was already well-known in Konoha.

Also, he thought that being selected for ANBU training program was the coolest thing ever. Danzō really should have known better.

* * *

Naruto was fairly vibrating with eagerness, shifting his weight from one leg to another. The man with ferret mask had led him into a huge underground training room, under the ANBU headquarters. It was high and spacious, one of the walls was covered with all kinds of weapons, maintained with care and put on display: long naginata and elegant katana, shorter wakizashi and daishō more fitting for a nin who had to keep his weapons concealed. Simple bō made of bamboo and hardwood, war fans from Suna, sai, tonfa, nunchaku, mundane kunai, senbon and shuriken next to beautiful bows of all sizes.

If they had weapons like that, Naruto thought, their jutsu library had to be _wicked. _Much better than what the lazy-ass Kakashi would teach Sasuke; Naruto only rued the fact that he wasn't allowed to tell his teammates, or anyone else, where he was and doing what. His glee was interrupted when a door opened at the opposite end of the room and a red-haired woman in her mid-twenties, dressed in hakama, walked in, steps echoing in the bare room.

She was rather beautiful though nowhere near Sakura-chan's or Tsunade-baachan's class. Her hair was cut so it barely reached her chin and her dark eyes were hard and stern. She was looking Naruto over, apparently not impressed, but Naruto had ages ago ceased to be intimidated by anything so subtle.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto, nice to meet you! Are you my new sensei?" he asked and gave the woman his best, brightest smile. He wanted to make a good first impression and it wouldn't do to appear lazy or uninterested. She seemed taken aback for a fraction of a second, but recovered like nothing ever shifted on her face.

"I am Okubo Hibari. When speaking to people outside ANBU you will refer to me as Crane-sensei. I have understood that the education you received at the academy was lacking in many respects. This will be corrected. I will work you to the ground so you can be of some use to Danzō-sama." Her voice was even and without any trace of emotion.

"That's great!" Naruto exclaimed. This time Hibari-sensei's face didn't even twitch, but Naruto had a feeling that she wasn't used to so much enthusiasm. He was careful to maintain his blinding smile.

Her eyes really bothered him. They reminded him of Gaara's, of Sasuke's, of Haku's; so much to prove it was painful, and desperation, fear that she just might not manage. He had a feeling that his own had looked like that too, before Iruka-sensei had proved once and for all that he at least saw Naruto and not what the rest of the village saw, a rabid biju in a decaying leash. Naruto wasn't the most perceiving person in many respects, but he could tell when someone thirsted acknowledgment. She was obviously in need of a good friend and Naruto resolved to be extra nice to her and not torture her like he had Kakashi-sensei and Jiraiya-sensei. He knew what it was like, when there was no one to talk to, no one who asked if you were okay after a crappy day or congratulated you on your birthday.

"When is your birthday?" he asked. Now Hibari-sensei's face did the twitch again. It was a really tiny twitch, but after learning to decipher the difference between Sasuke's Frown #1 (broody) and Frown #2 (homicidal), not to be confused with Annoyed Narrowing of Eyes and Arrogant Twitch of Eyebrow, he was expert at observing the little muscles around eyes.

"Twenty third of August, not that I see what benefit this information is to you. I will now take you to the Root HQ. You will share a room with another young shinobi, Sai, who will show you around and give you your training schedule. I will have my way with you seven am tomorrow, don't be late. Also, be aware that if you disclose to any outside Root its existence, the way to the HQ or any secrets you will learn there, even to superior officers not in Root, your life will be forfeit."

As she spoke, Hibari-sensei turned around and led Naruto through the door to yet another staircase that led down. Luckily this spared him from his new sensei from witnessing the blush that rose to his face. Naruto, being a teenager only getting acquainted with his hormones, couldn't not blush at Hibari-sensei's innuendo, as little as she surely meant with it. But he was totally loyal to Sakura-chan and he wasn't perverted like Jiraiya-sensei, or Kakashi-sensei, or Ebisu who had almost been his sensei for a short while. What was it with him getting all the perverted sensei anyway? But he bravely kicked the interest his hormones were taking into submission, in the process completely ignoring the death threat, and gave Hibari-sensei a suddenly suspicious look. He hadn't known women could be perverts, had always believed that the second x-chromosome prevented it somehow, but with the way his luck run when it came to teachers he could never be too sure.

"You aren't gonna read perverted books while I train or do anything other perverted, are you?" he asked just to make sure. Hibari-sensei, who had reached a small cleaning closet and knelt down to lift heavy metal cover that seemed to lead to sewers, paused her effort and turned her head to look into Naruto's eyes. For the first time there was a clear expression on her face and it was highly offended.

"Of course not." Her words were prim and clipped and she directed a small amount of killing intent into Naruto. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"Sorry, but Kakashi-sensei and Jiraiya-sensei did that all the time," he explained. "You aren't gonna be three hours late from training or wander off and leave me alone either, right?"

"No." Hibari-sensei lifted the cover, but her eyes were still riveted to Naruto's face, again devoid of all emotion. The air from the sewers smelled damp and musty, but still a lot cleaner than sewers should.

"This is gonna be so great!" Naruto exclaimed and pumped his fist into the air. Then he jumped into the dimly lit sewer, shouting with joy.

It should be noted that Naruto, having slept through most of Konoha's history, had never heard of Root before Jiraiya had informed that he was to become Danzō's apprentice. Being Naruto he hadn't thought to check what information there was of the man either. Thus far this Root promised to be the coolest place ever! Hibari-sensei was going to teach him kick-ass jutsu and actually spar with him and they even had a secret underground entrance! The only thing that would have made it better would have been if he had been able to impress Sakura-chan with it. Secret handshake would also have been nice. He looked up where Hibari-sensei was climbing down the ladder.

"Do we have a secret handshake?"

* * *

Day 1, suborn count 0.

Recorded by the surveillance seal: confirmation of the existence of the Root and Danzō's involvement, order to lie to superior officers under threat of death.

* * *

AN: This will not be Naruto/Hibari. In fact, there will be no romance at all.

The little line over a letter means that it should be pronounced long. For example: Kyūbi = Kyuubi. It just looks better with the line in my opinion.


	2. Days 13: Inklings

**Days 1-3****: Inklings of not-pleasant kind**

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

* * *

It turned out that the training room Naruto was so enamored with wasn't part of the Root HQ at all. After longish walk through a sewer lit by dim, yellow light bulbs, much too clean and dry to be part of any real sewer network, Hibari-sensei led him into a small entry hall which was guarded by two shinobi wearing masks that seemed really strange to Naruto. One of them looked a bit like a monkey, except he had seen the Monkey ANBU before and that wasn't her mask. That wasn't a she at all and there were strange curved lines over the not-cat's eyes that Naruto didn't recognise. The other mask might have been a very stylized raccoon, which disappointed Naruto a little. He had thought about choosing raccoon as his mask to honour Gaara, since fox would have been too obvious.

"Crane returning. I bring Firefly with me. The normal procedure will be passed due to Danzō -sama's orders," Hibari-sensei said and the Not-Monkey nodded, allowing them to march inside. In his excitement about becoming a real ANBU-trainee before Sasuke even made a normal Jonin and disappointment about not getting to become Raccoon Hibari's words too a few seconds to sink in.

"What do you mean, Firefly? Do I look like a firefly to you? Toads eat fireflies!" Hibari-sensei gave him a disapproving glare at his outburst.

"Undisciplined wailing over matters of no consequence, or indeed anything, is not tolerated in Root. You have been registered as Firefly and that alias will in no way hinder your duties," she admonished him. "What relevance does toads' ability to eat fireflies bear in this, anyway?" she asked.

"Nothing," Naruto muttered, internally banging his head against a wall.

Ero-sensei had forbidden him from letting anyone in Root know that he had trained Naruto as much as he had. When it came to summoning toads the damage was already done, but he had told Naruto to not bring the subject up to keep anyone from taking undue interest in the subject. He especially wasn't supposed to let anyone know that he could use Rasengan. He really wasn't sure why it was so big a deal, but he assumed that the pervy Sannin had some kind of good reason. Maybe.

"Good for you to act all cool, you have an animal that can be taken seriously," he muttered rebelliously under his breath as he followed his new sensei further into the underground base.

"What did you mean by the normal procedure?" he asked then. Wasn't it so cool that he was a special case? Almost cool enough to forget the Firefly thing, but only almost.

Each member of the Root had a Cursed Seal imprinted on their tongue by Danzō, near the back of their throat, that would paralyze their whole body if they tried to speak anything about Danzō or Root, rendering them unable to speak or move. Jiraiya, the undisputed Seal Master and an unofficial spy master of Konohagakure no Sato, had managed to get a report of his concerning the Kyūbi seal stolen by one of Danzō's underlings. In it he warned the Hokage about ever applying any seals other than chakra suppression seals on Naruto because they would play havoc with Yondaime' seal, endangering the whole village. It was a load of crap, but Jiraiya was the only one advanced enough in fuuinjutsu to see that just by looking at the seal. Because of that and because the seal wasn't foolproof in the first place – it didn't prevent the bearer from writing down and handing over any information, as demonstrated by the Root nin still being able to write reports – Danzō had decided to pass the procedure.

"Nothing that concerns you," Hibari-sensei answered.

After several twists and turns Hibari-sensei opened a door and they arrived into a large hall, from which branched many smaller corridor-tunnels. They were lined by doors, made of some dark, clean-smelling wood and there was lock in each. They walked to one door, the ninth of the second orridor, that didn't seem any different than the ones beside it. Hibari-sensei knocked it sharply and only now Naruto paid attention to the fact that she was wearing heavy gloves made of leather dyed pleasant dark green. They were really odd accessories to her traditional hakama, but before Naruto had the time to ask the door opened and a young shinobi stepped outside.

"No way, are you Sasuke-kun's long-lost identical twin or something?" Naruto shouted, pointing at the boy his age, the odd gloves immediately forgotten.

He looked so much like Sasuke it was creepy. The resemblance was made even creepier by the midriff-revealing shirt that Sasuke wouldn't have worn under threat of death by torture, though that made the situation kind of amusing too. But the creepiest of all was Sai's smile. His eyes were closed, the curve of his mouth picture-perfect and still it somehow managed to be second only to Orochimaru on the creepy-scale. That was when Naruto first began to have suspicions about Root. Hibari-sensei might have been just an exception, but Sai too?

Kakashi sensei had told them once, when they had been on the mission to protect princess Yuki: once is a pity, twice might be a coincidence, but three times is already a pattern. All right, so he had to wait until he saw a third person without a mask. But it was a good thing he was there; these people really needed someone to kick some sense and emotion into them.

"This is Sai. He will take over from here." Without further goodbyes Hibari-sensei turned around and marched off.

"Have a good day, Hibari-sensei!" Naruto shouted and extended his hand to Sai. He got a glimpse of Sai's room, now his room too, and it made him frown unhappily. It was completely bare, other than the futon, closet and two desks. All was grey and drab beige, like washed colourless. Obviously Sai knew nothing of decorating. It was all begging a touch of orange. Naruto also wondered if his plants would survive without sunlight and sadly concluded that they wouldn't. His plants trusted him, no way he would bring them there to die.

"It's nice to meet you, Sai-kun," he said. Sai looked at his hand like it was some kind of exotic animal before taking it and shaking it two times before letting go.

"Good day, Naruto-kun. I have read a book about this. Does this mean we are friends now?" he asked with a pleasant voice that wasn't like Sasuke-kun's at all. He grabbed Sai'd hand and dragged him towards the main corridor.

"Yep, so it's time you show me around. We are gonna be training together, right?" And so Naruto chattered away as Sai begun their sightseeing tour.

"What's your mask?" he asked his new friend as the other shinobi led him through a corridor where an ugly bridge made of concrete elements crossed an underground river, dark, quick water very pleasant to look like in comparison. Naruto thought that he saw a ladder go down in the shadows under the bridge and figured that maybe the river was another secret entrance. If it was, Sai didn't show it to him.

"That is a secret," Sai announced and gave him another closed-eyed smile.

"Don't tell me there is something even more embarrassing than Firefly. Is it Bunny?" he teased. Jiraiya-sensei would be so crushed if it turned out that the legendary Bunny ANBU featured in his Icha Icha Infiltration wasn't a woman after all. Sai didn't look amused.

Then again, he didn't look much like anything. He tried to imagine what his face would look like should Jiraiya give him the bunny ear headband he had made in an obvious fit of self-destructive idiocy, but found he couldn't.

The underground maze of tunnels and "complexes", like the apartment complex where they had started from, was so big Naruto figured it had to be at least as large as the whole Uchiha district, just underground. It was, out of necessity, very bare and dull-looking, not to mention the lack of natural light. Now Naruto figured why Sai was so pale and he couldn't wait for his first day to end so he could get outside; the place was seriously constricting.

"Didn't you have my schedule, Sai-kun?" he asked his new friend. He wanted to see when he was off-duty. Sai took a paper folded two times from his pocket and handed it to him, without saying a word.

Every day:  
7.00 – 11.00 ninjutsu training, instructor Crane  
11.00 – 11.30 lunch break  
12.00 – 16.00 taijutsu training, instructor Crane

Every Wednesday and Friday additionally:  
16.00 – 18.00 tactics, strategy, instructor Otter

Every other Monday:  
16.00 – evaluation conversation, councilman Danzō

Every other Tuesday:  
15.00 – 19.00 kenjutsu training, instructor Crane

Anyone else would have taken one look at the schedule and then protested how insanely harsh it was. Then the anyone in question would have been promptly given punishment detail on top of it because Danzō preferred to root all objection out of his minions at the first chance. This wasn't anyone, however. This was Naruto.

It was one of the lesser known facts about being the jinchūrikiof Kyūbi no Yōko, but there was a reason Naruto acted like a five-year-old on sugar and caffeine, unless recently beaten within inches of unconsciousness, and it wasn't just because. The way Yondaime Hokage had designed the seal, inconceivable masterpiece when situation he had to design it in was considered, it bled Kyūbi's chakra slowly into Naruto's. But hasty work is never perfect and the one significant flaw of the seal was that once the chakra transfer had been initiated it couldn't be stopped. There was a steady flow of Kyūbi's chakra, strength, into Naruto that he couldn't cut off.

As a result Naruto was left brimming with energy and much too little to do to burn it. That was the reason Naruto so often trained himself to the ground when properly motivated; he enjoyed the sense of rest it gave him.

"Huh, looks cool. I bet Hibari-sensei knows all kinds of cool jutsu and moves. Tactics sound boring, though. Do you know who Otter-sensei is?" He turned to look at Sai, who gave him the creepy, empty smile again.

"Crane-sempai is indeed a very commendable kunoichi. As to Otter-sempai's identity, he will reveal it to you if he sees fit," Sai answered. Then he stopped smiling like a switch had been flipped and tilted his head, giving Naruto a piercing gaze.

"Are you sure the schedule isn't too harsh for you, Naruto-kun?" he asked. Naruto gave him his most confident grin, the one that split his face every time he exclaimed he was going to be Hokage one day, because it was something as sure as the sun rising the next morning.

"Of course not! I'm gonna ace through this, believe it!" Sai nodded to him and smiled again, but it was as fake as it had been before and suddenly Naruto couldn't stand it. He _hated _it when people doubted him, even more when they didn't say so and he couldn't argue.

What to do about Sai and his fake smile? To Naruto the answer was obvious. He poked his guide and new teammate to the ribs.

"That creepy smile of yours annoys me and I'm gonna do something about it," he declared. Sai raised one eyebrow and for a second he resembled Sasuke so much Naruto felt homesick even though he was still in the same village with the smug, arrogant primadonna-ninja.

"How do you propose to do it?" Sai asked as his stance shifted a little. It seemed to Naruto like he was readying himself for a fight, though he couldn't figure out why. There was no reason to fight.

"Tickle torture!" And he descended on Sai like the very merry wrath of Kami-sama, latching his fingers on Sai's sides and armpits and tickling for all he was worth.

Some evidence suggests that laughing associated with tickling is a nervous reaction that can be triggered; very ticklish people often start laughing before actually being tickled. Sai, extremely self-disciplined shinobi of Root, didn't laugh or even smile, but his mouth did make an odd upward twitch that came out half smile, half panic. For several moments he stood rigid as a steel rod in Naruto's arms, then he freed himself with one smooth move and took several steps backwards, eyeing Naruto much more cautiously than when he had readied himself for a fight.

"See? You smiled," Naruto laughed.

"I didn't. Did I?" Sai began surely, but his voice quickly lost aplomb.

"Well, not really, but it was better than your creepy smile. Your lips twitched kind of right way, just try to keep them like that and think happy thought, like ramen." And Sai dragged the corners of his mouth upwards to resemble the original, startled twitch.

That was exactly what it looked like. An I'm-being-polite-to-the-crazy-person-is-he-going-to-do-something –smile, but it wasn't too bad. Naruto had a feeling that at last Sai was genuinely thinking what he seemed to be thinking and that was a step to the right direction, right?

* * *

It only took less than one day for Naruto's teammates to realize that he was nowhere to be seen. The Hokage, after listening to Kakashi protesting fiercely about sending his student _and his sensei's son _into the serpent's nest that was Root for two hours straight, had been forced to pull a rank. Kakashi had left his office fairly vibrating with ire and in his less than collected state of mind had forgotten to inform Sasuke and Sakura of the cover story; that Naruto had left with Jiraiya to an extended training trip. He had merely shunshined into the training grounds where Sasuke and Sakura were waiting.

"You are in time!" Sakura screamed and even Sasuke had had hard time collecting his jaw from his chest. Kakashi was in no mood to play his normal games, however. He threw a scroll at them, which Sasuke grabbed from the air easily.

"Study these jutsu," he had ordered and shunshined away, his one visible eye steely and cold.

"We should probably wait for Naruto-san," Sasuke said reluctantly and eyed the scroll hungrily. Eventually something useful for him to learn, instead of more insipid tree walking. And of course his idiot of almost-friend-kind-of-rival had chosen that precise day to be late.

"Well, he is our teammate," Sakura pointed out and frowned. "What do you think has gotten into Kakashi-sensei? He looked really terse." Sasuke shrugged and sat back down on the rock and she did same. She sat a little closer to him than he was comfortable with, but not so close he would have bothered to move. He opened the scroll instead, old yellow with dark blue borders, but his mind wasn't in it.

It was funny how lately their thoughts had circled Uzumaki Naruto like cat circled hot porridge. There was something about their teammate that just didn't add up. Why had his school scores been so abysmal if he could make the kind of strides in getting stronger that he had? Related to that, the odd hostility of villagers that they had refused to explain to any child they had heard of. Might someone have sabotaged Naruto's education? Mizuki-sensei had been arrested the day after the Academy genin test and numerous rumours circulated of that, but the offence he had committed was classified information. Why was Naruto so hated, just how much chakra did he have anyway, and how was it even possible when most senior jonin could only create single-digit number of kage bunshin? And of course, there was the matter of Gamabunta. The toad boss.

"What I want to know is how he summoned that giant toad. Jutsu like that takes more than just a lot of chakra. Gamabunta's a Sannin-level summon!" Sasuke knew what he was talking about: after Naruto had summoned the toad boss to capture him in the Valley of the End he had done his research. Sakura went silent in thought.

"Maybe he has a bloodline?" suggested Sakura. "In threatening situations I've seen him use a different sort of chakra, it was red, actually visible and had kind of ominous aura. It is difficult to explain."

She didn't need to explain it to him. Sasuke remembered Naruto crouching on all fours like some predator, it had resembled the Inuzuka's Shikyaku no Jutsu. The stupid ramen topping boy, the dead last of the Academy, had snarled at him, Rasengan forming in his hands and blue light escaping between long, sharp nails. He remembered the red chakra surrounding Naruto, taking the shape of some animal… He remembered the smell of water and the chirping of a thousand birds and a shudder wracked his body. How could he have allowed himself degenerate into mindless rage like that?

"If it's a bloodline though, where's the clan? As far as I know, Naruto-san has no family." Might Naruto be related to the Inuzuka somehow?

"He must have had parents at one point, obviously. Let's ask around a bit later, see if we can find anything on it," Sakura proposed, her eyes shining. She had been getting better, Sasuke had to admit, but the vain, rumour-loving fangirl still occupied a good quarter of his pink-haired teammate's mind.

"Shouldn't we just ask him, Sakura-san?"

"Maybe we shouldn't," Sakura mused. "He's an orphan. I mean, how would you feel, Sasuke-kun, if Naruto-san suddenly started bombarding you with questions about your dead relatives?"

Sasuke didn't need to answer that. And so they waited and waited, but Naruto didn't come. Eventually they begun to train on their own, and only then they realised that Kakashi-sensei hadn't told them when to quit. After two hours, when Sasuke had mastered three C-level jutsu and Sakura one, they had to concede that maybe Naruto wasn't coming. There was barely any wind and what little there was was hot, like it had blown through an oven. Sasuke wiped a bead of sweat from marring his forehead.

"Kakashi-sensei was so angry when he left. Do you think something has happened?" Sakura asked, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. Sasuke nodded, his expression grim. People had been a lot nicer to Naruto lately, but he was just too trusting. Someone might have faked it and done… something. Assessing the threat level and probability would have been much easier if he had known why Naruto had been so reviled in the first place. He was an idiot, but an amiable one.

The more they pondered the situation and talked amongst themselves, the more curious and worried they became about Naruto. They found out they knew anything about his past before entering the Academy. They couldn't name anyone who personally knew Naruto outside the circle the rookie nine and Gai-san's team and now that creepy Gaara, except for their old teachers, Iruka-sensei especially. And come to think of it, where Naruto lived? If someone wanted to find him off duty going to the Ichiraku's was usually a safe bet. They wanted to find him now, but not even his teammates had been to his house.

"This need to be investigated," Sasuke said. He had detested Naruto at first when he had borderline forced him to return to Konoha. Even as they had limped through the gates together, using each other as crutches, his mind had burned. But Naruto had saved him from becoming nukenin like Itachi, becoming Itachi, and he had saved Sasuke from being possessed by Orochimaru in the long run. He didn't like that he had to stay in Konoha and get better at such excruciatingly slow pace, but part of being adult, as all nin were legal adults, was to accept that world didn't give anything for free. All this Naruto, the immature idiot, had managed to teach him.

"What if something bad has happened to him?" Sakura asked with a small voice. Her big, green eyes were shining and Sasuke realised she was holding back tears.

"If he is in danger we will save him, and if he has already been hurt there will be hell to pay." Immature idiot Naruto might be, but he was their immature idiot.

Meanwhile, Sannin Jiraiya had left the town as part of Naruto's cover story. The Hokage, still plagued by guilt, believed that Sasuke and Sakura had been informed of the cover story. In a small inn, in the process of getting thoroughly sloshed in the middle of a day, certain Hatake Kakashi had already forgotten that he hadn't informed his students. At Ichiraku's certain Academy teacher named Umino Iruka was fretting because he had been supposed to meet Naruto there half an hour ago and Naruto was never late for ramen. And in Root HQ certain Uzumaki Naruto had blissfully forgotten to inform Iruka-sensei that he wouldn't be coming.

Oops. Poor, poor Danzo.

* * *

Naruto joined Root on Saturday and he trained the Sunday. Hibari-sensei had decided to split his ninjutsu training in half. Every other day she would work with Naruto's chakra control until he could actually conserve his strength, every other day he would tech him jutsu he could use right away; immediate satisfaction so to speak. She begun with new jutsu and she begun from the scratch with his taijutsu, forbidding him from giving in to Kyūbi-born instinct to go down on all four and kicking his ass whenever he did. The second day she gave Naruto a small wooden tablets with six thin lines drawn into it, all the colours of the rainbow. He was to channel his chakra into it and the more chakra he channelled the more lines drawn with chakra-sensitive ink would be lit with white light. If he channelled too much the tablet would explode. He was to continue the exercise until only one line was lit. It was probably prescient of her to give him a hundred tablets.

"Why are you wearing those gloves all the time?" he asked her after blowing up the seventh tablet in a cloud of small, sharp wooden shrapnel. Hibari-sensei was picking the splinters from his hands with pincers, her hands pleasantly sure. Even the, handling the pincers would have been a lot easier without the gloves. As he asked her the grip tightened painfully, if only for a second.

"You wouldn't like what's underneath," she said humourlessly and gracefully picked a tiny splinter from where it had lodged between his ring finger and little finger.

"I sure would. I like Hibari-sensei so there's no way I wouldn't like your hands too," he promised. But instead of making her happy that made her angry and she took obvious pleasure in pointing out every flaw in his ninjutsu and taijutsu all day long and delivering harder hits and kicks than the day before.

Naruto couldn't understand why people had to be so complicated. If you said nice things to them they were supposed to be happy about it, right? He had wanted to make Hibari-sensei happy, but she had just gotten angry, even though he had promised to like whatever she was hiding. Naruto never backed down on his promises, that was his nindo. Hibari-sensei's pretty face was closed that day, like a window with shudders inside and nothing Naruto did that day was good enough.

On Monday was also his first evaluation conversation with Danzō. There wasn't much to evaluate yet, but that wasn't the point. Danzō intended to initiate Naruto's downward spiral into his greatest weapon, the feather in his cap. Hiruzen Sarutobi was an old man after all and he had yet to name a successor. A man in possession of a force fit to level the whole village would be in prime position when choosing the next Hokage after all and Sarutobi's health wasn't what it had been before Orochimaru's attack. He might decide to give up the office any day so there wasn't time to cultivate his ace in the hole one day more than necessary. They met in his office, Uzumaki Naruto sitting opposite to him. Danzō lied with his smile, with his words, with his whole body, appearing so harmless.

"How have you found your training, Naruto-kun?" he asked from the boy fidgeting on the chair in front of him. Naruto had been given sensible black, or at least dark green and grey clothes, but he still insisted in wearing his orange jumpsuits and Danzō was going to order him to give those up. Also, to punish him should the Uzumaki boy prove to be recalcitrant.

"It's cool enough, though Hibari-sensei's a bit odd. Sai's odd too, but he's nice and that ink thing he does is way great," his newest initiate answered, his carefree grin baring very white set of teeth just a bit too sharp to belong to a normal human. He was a little beast, but he would be Danzō's beast.

"I've understood that you have not complained about your schedule," he said, frowning. Truem three days weren't much time for a nin to wear themselves out, but everyone who graduated from the Academy had learned to recognize their limits and apparently Uzumaki Naruto's were higher than he had anticipated.

"I will add art lessons into your schedule. Sai-kun will be the one to teach you," he informed his newest converted. As he had expected, Naruto's face was twisted in a grimace.

"I can't use the painting-fighting, Sai said my chakra pollutes the ink. Other than that, drawing's useless."

"There is no useless skill when you are a shinobi," Danzō said to the doubtful boy sitting opposite him, "the ability to draw is a very important thing for all ninja to possess."

"Really? Why?" Naruto's voice wasn't convinced and he was fidgeting on the chair, tapping the floor with his feet. Danzō sighed. Naruto wasn't against all odds abused into desperation to please so he wold have to pretend to care for his well-being, at least for now. He pulled the newest edition of Iwa Bingo Book from his pocket and handed it to the messy-haired boy.

"Bingo Book! So cool, do I get one?" Naruto asked and grabbed it, opening it at the beginning; Abukara Aki, A-class jonin of Kusagakure. A copy of a photograph of a long-nosed woman with her hair on a ponytail looked at him from the page.

"Look on page sixty two" he ordered. Naruto flipped through the book, stopping at Zabusa and snorted when he realized they hadn't reported him dead yet. But the memory of Haku's desperate eyes and his blood on Naruto's hands, warm and smelling so strongly he had though he could never scrub it off, made him turn the leaf quickly.

"Name: Unknown," he read. "A-class. Description: Black hair, brown eyes, wears glasses, mole above collarbone. Weapons of choice…" His voice died down.

"It would be more helpful if they had at least a sketch, wouldn't it?" Danzō asked dryly. "Or a good portrait."

He took the Bingo Book back and picked his notebook, the one with the Icha Icha cover, from his pocket, clicked his pencil open and drew a quick diagram of an imaginary building.

"Getting caught smuggling something like this out of Iwagakure is bound to get an undercover agent into trouble." He made another quick drawing, this time of a classic mountain scenery with bamboo roots and a crane. It wasn't a very good drawing, but it wasn't like he lived like he preached anyway. He didn't need to, he was the top dog in this junk yard and no one dared to question him.

"So you never took drawing lessons, did you?" Naruto asked, making Danzō grit his teeth.

"Something quite harmless, isn't it?" he continued like he hadn't heard.

"I don't get it," Naruto said in frustration, "what has that got to do with the building?"

"Simple," Danzō said with an indulgent smile. He again picked up the pencil and made lines connecting several little spots hidden with the lines, drawing the building's diagram over the picture. He cackled internally at Naruto's resigned face though his kind, grandfatherly smile never wavered. He would like to see that a lot more in the future. Art lessons it was, then. Now on to the next part. Give a bone to the dog and take advantage while it's still wagging its tail.

"I have been given an introductory report of your training. I will order Crane to teach you several S-class kinjutsu as you have already proved to master one on your own," he promised. He had to admit that the use of Kage Bushin as training tools, by multiplying yourself and the time used from subjective point of view, was rather ingenious. Ha was planning to make it a standard practice.

Naruto was hopping up and down and jumping on the desk. The muddy footprints made Danzō shudder and also wonder how he had gotten his feet muddy when he hadn't stepped outside in days. (In fact Naruto had. He had just used the cool river entrance and not bothered to tell anyone. There was no way he could go without ramen and go on living, after all.)

"Crane has praised your training motivation, but it seems to me that you take this with much too light heart. Being a shinobi is a serious business. The future of Konoha depends on the likes of you. Don't you think that it is the time to give up the games of youth and become the adult you have been since you became genin?" he asked. He was well aware that the young wanted nothing more that to be seen as adults, to play the adults' games instead of those of youth, to be praised. Young ego was so fragile and in Uzumaki Naruto's case it would be more so than normal. Anyone with half brain could tell how badly he yarned for recognition, for someone to tell him he was worthy, that he deserved regard. He knew that was what Shinichiro Mizuki had used to make Naruto steal the kinjutsu scroll, after all.

What he didn't know was that Naruto had learned a lot from that experience.

"How is it going to make Konoha stronger if I'm unhappy?" he asked with innocent eyes. He really was that innocent. Danzō only refused to believe it; innocence and its stubborn power was a lesson he had forgotten ages ago.

"I'm not asking you to be unhappy, merely serious. I have understood that you wish to be the Hokage some day. To reach that dream you will have to put the naivety of childhood behind and open your eyes to the truth of the world," he argued, confident in his belief that this was the key to get Naruto promise to do anything. That was the most obvious weak spot he could stab. It just wasn't in the most obvious person.

"The Hokage changes the world, not the other way around. I'm going to be the best Hokage ever and I'm going to protect everyone in Konoha! What would be the point if I didn't? And your people need some joy in their lives. Scratch that, they need a life, period." The conversation went downhill from there: indoctrination it was not.

"Fear is the mother of morality," he said, not quite sure how they got to that topic. That isn't true, Naruto argued, he feared nothing and he was a very moral person. Danzō pointed out the incident with Mizuki and the kinjutsu scroll, but Naruto only scratched his head, looking very mild-mannered and sheepish and apologized, not even considering changing his mind. Danzō thought it was good tactics, but probably an accident.

"A stroll through any lunatic asylum shows that faith doesn't prove anything," he argued when Naruto defended his decision to catch Uchiha Sasuke alive and risk him escaping with Orochimaru rather than dealing with the last Uchiha like any criminal. "I was right!" was a very frustrating argument to try and overrule.

"How does it prove that not having faith is a good thing?" Naruto asked in all wide-eyed innocence. Danzō was beginning to suspect that he was doing it on purpose. It reminded him of fresh snow, of blank papers to write reports of death and blood and betrayal on. Being that pure, even if it was self-delusion or pretending, was just begging for trouble.

"All things are subject to interpretation. The interpretation that prevails at a given time is dependent of power and not truth. Truth is a figment of human mind," he argued. Naruto said that if people tried to make truth out of lie they were lying and therefore it wasn't true. Danzō decided that Uzumaki Naruto put idiot back to idiot savant. He left the HQ for a Council meeting, feeling absolutely dissatisfied.

Only after he had already entered the Council chambers Danzō realized he hadn't ordered the ingrate to give up orange. Fine, he would do that the next time. At least the punishment detail the irritating genin would go through the second he refused a direct order should tire all resistance out of him.

He had a nagging feeling that Uzumaki Naruto would be trouble, but shrugged it off the best he could. He was just one genin with more than enough emotional baggage. What could possibly go wrong?

* * *

Day 3, suborn count 0.

Recorded by the surveillance seal: Danzō interacting within Root and attempting to indoctrinate a new member, promise to teach a genin S-class kinjutsu.

* * *

AN: For those less versed with Naruto; yes, I meant kenjutsu, not genjutsu. Kenjutsu, meaning "the art of the sword", is a term for classical Japanese sword arts. Here I have expanded it to mean all fighting with weapons.

About honorifics and my use of them

-dono: Most respectful, derives from tono which means lord. Won't be used unless I bring the Fire daimyo into this for some odd reason.

-sama: The second most respectful form.

-san: The most commonplace honorific, you may stick this at the end of friendly acquaintance, stranger on the street and an enemy, unless you want to insult them (look explanation of no honorific.) My Sasuke uses this when he talks to Sakura, because he doesn't want to encourage her fangirlism.

-chan: Usually used of girls, friendly form of honorofics. It may be used of someone younger or in lower position than you are, but usually it implies certain degree of intimacy.

-kun: Same as above, except usually used of boys. By calling Sai –kun from the start Naruto announces that he considers Sai a friend. Danzō calls Naruto –kun to highlight his higher status and much older age.

-sempai: Used of someone your superior, or an upperclassman. Title of seniority.

-kohai: Title of juniority,

no honorific: In Japan, if a person leaves the honorific off entirely it implies close friendship, or love, great intimacy of some kind. If used without being earned, it is quite insulting. For example, if Naruto had called Sasuke just that on their first day as teammates he would most like have punched Naruto, what with his temper. The problem with this is that it doesn't translate very well, so in the English translation Naruto calling Sakura –chan is a sign of his feelings, likewise Sakura calls Sasuke –kun, and not using any is the standard.

Yeah, I'm showing off. Sorry. ^_^;;


	3. Days 49: Ramen save your soul

**Days 4-9: ****(Ramen) save your soul**

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no money.

* * *

The Great Vampire Technique, as Naruto had nicknamed the new kinjutsu Hibari-sensei had taught him much to her irritation, was based on the fact that blood plasma, which comprised fifty five percent of blood fluid, was ninety percent water. It was ideally suited for water types, but that wasn't a requirement. Once the wielder of the jutsu had managed to wound their opponent, even f it was a minor, barely bleeding scratch, they could draw blood through the wound, making every wound immediately life threatening.

It hadn't been classified as kinjutsu because of ethics, as they were ninja, not samurai. The forbidden label had been given because it was very easy to accidentally to affect your own blood as well and rarely anyone came out of a fight without a scratch. In the heat of a fight where concentrating was difficult the technique tended to be lethal for its wielder as well, especially if they weren't water type.

"I'm so going to hit Orochimaru's ass with this the next time I see the bastard. Let's see if mister I-can-reattach-bodyparts-with-snakes can make blood of them too!" Naruto shouted, jumping up and down after his first big success. It was still odd, to feel the hard, unyielding concrete under his feet instead of ground. He missed the scent of grass and leaved and dirt.

His chakra was coiling in his belly, all heat and strong like tide, but he was already used to it.

Sai had been his most recent guinea pig, something Naruto had profoundly thanked him for, and his right arm was red from elbow to fingertips from a tiny scratch barely half an inch long. There were brownish-red stains all over the floor, bloody footsteps leading away from then, signs of Naruto's previous attempts with his fellow Root ninja, the metallic scent of it making Kyūbi restless, exited, more aware than usual even though it still couldn't talk to him. The puddle under his own feet was so large it hadn't even begun to congeal yet.

Naruto's body was splashed red from head to toe, blood had matted his hair and coated his jumpsuit, getting into his Kyūbi-red eyes and caking under his fingernails. But the furball had paid its rent in full and attempt number seven had been successful at last.

"You sure are energetic, considering the amount of blood you have lost. I wonder if you show such stamina in other activities as well," Sai said calmly as Hibari-sensei performed a healing jutsu on his hand, without removing the damned gloves. He was even paler now in the stark artificial light. Blood loss pale.

"Hibari-sensei, Sai-kun's weirding me out again!" Naruto complained, but it was mostly in jest. At first, when Sai had begun to make those kind of comments, he had thought his roommate was a pervert; just his luck. But he had later figured that it was actually Sai's attempt at humour. Pretty bad attempt, but he was making the effort. Hibari-sensei generally didn't dignify those arguments with an answer and she didn't do so now.

It had been long six days since Monday. Naruto had met his other instructor, an odd man called Otter who was wearing his mask all the time and refused to tell his name. Naruto had toyed with the idea that maybe he didn't have one, but even he recognized that as ridiculous. Everybody had a name, even if only one.

At first he had thought it was weird Sai didn't have family name, but gradually he had realized that it was him and Hibari-sensei who were the odd ones out there. Everyone else he had come to know by name lacked surname: huge, hulking Kiba-san whose icy cool temperament made him the complete opposite of his namesake, Fū-san and Torune-san who were high-ups and mousy-looking, kick-ass Tomiko-chan.

He had learned that strategy definitely wasn't his strongest point. He was actually pretty good with tactics much to his surprise as long as it involved making up a new one in a situation that had gone pear-shaped. he had always thought best on his feet, but strategy was boring, boring, boring.

He had also received his own mask. It was pristine porcelain white with markings around the eyes that were supposed to represent insect eyes. He was still torqued because Firefly was a stupid name for an ANBU. Glowing beetles didn't generally strike fear in the enemy ninja's hearts the same way tigers and boars did, unless they had some weird phobia. But the mask was to stay and to add insult to injury he still hadn't found what Sai's codename was. That tight-lipped bastard. Naruto really hoped it was Bunny so he could laugh at him.

"Return to your room to clean up and rest," Hibari-sensei commanded after briefly laying her hand on him, ensuring Kyūbi had properly healed him. "You are to meet me at entrance A2 at nine. In civilian clothes."

A huge grin split Naruto's face. He had a _plan _in mind. A plot to Make Sai Loose Up and his decidedly not-evil, righteous plan was proceeding well.

* * *

Sasuke and Sakura weren't the only friends of Naruto who had noticed right away that he was missing. There was one another, a kind-hearted, soft-spoken and polite girl who harbored a crush the size of the Hokage monument for him, one of the few people who knew how painful Naruto's childhood had been, but lacked the self-confidence to even talk to him. There was no way Hyūga Hinata wouldn't have noticed. She had been following Naruto around in secret for a long time.

She most definitely wasn't stalking him! She followed him around, but she was only hiding because she was so painfully, hopelessly weak, and besides, it didn't count as stalking when her intentions were pure. And she could see through walls (and clothing) if she wanted, but she would never do that! Except that one time, but it had been an accident.

She had finally gotten up the courage to go speak to Naruto and had got to his apartment before losing her nerve. Shifting her weight uneasily from one leg to another, trying to muster her courage to knock the door. She had activated her bloodline to see if Naruto was inside, a handy excuse to stall, and gotten an eyeful of Naruto in a bathroom. Luckily he'd had a white and blue towel around his waist, but Hinata had seen his tanned, muscular chest, still glistening with small drops of water, his strong arms and almost foxy gait… and promptly fainted. But that still wasn't stalking!

It was day four when Hinata found out that Naruto had gone missing. Because she was an intelligent, sensible girl she decided to ask from his teammates, since they should be in the know. She was also a girl with a cousin who regarded Naruto very highly and was prone to going to ridiculous length once he decided on something and Naruto was the one person who had talked him out of that resolve, ever.

Double oops. But that's what evil megalomaniacs get for being evil megalomaniacs.

* * *

The bar was smoky and kind of smelly and full of loud people. Naruto loved it fiercely after the sterile Root headquarters. He was sitting on the bar stool like Hibari-sensei had taught him to and sipped from his glass with small, feminine sips. Performing the jutsu and sauntering had always been enough for him; he had never known it took so much thought to fool ninja long term. The drink was pink because he thought it looked feminine. It tasted stupid, but you couldn't have everything.

"What is a woman like you doing in a place like this?" A man in his sixties was wiggling his eyebrows at Naruto. Black, cropped hair and lack of tattoos aside, the man reminded him of ero-sennin.

"Having a free night while my dear husband is taking care of our ten months old baby," he said. It was really had to keep straight face.

"Kami, what's a woman like you doing with a husband and a baby?" The pervy man's gaze raked down his body. Naruto sat straighter and pushed her shoulders back, making her ample breast stand out and the man swallowed hard. Sai had theorized that his borderline obsession to disguise himself as a scantily-clad girl was actually Kyuubi's influence, and yes, he had come to know Naruto that well in only a week, since in the folk stories foxes were known to often take a woman's form to toy with men. Naruto thought it was hilarious how breasts impaired people's brains.

"The sex was too good to say no."

There was a good explanation for this. Really.

Naruto had decided to take Sai to Ichiraku's because of the tragic, tragic fact that he had only ever eaten instant ramen. There was ramen and there was instant ramen and the latter was a crime against ramen as far as Naruto was concerned. He had been making friends with Sai, who had done his best to ignore his antics, but that was nothing new. They all cracked sooner or later so Naruto hadn't worried. And because Naruto was Naruto the conversation had unavoidably turned to ramen. Sai had not-smiled a little and shaken his head.

"Isn't all ramen essentially the same? I know they pretend to make different flavours, but it all tastes the same to me." They had been on their way to the training room. Sai had glanced over to see that Naruto was no longer walking beside him but had stopped in the middle of the corridor. He didn't know it, but that moment had convinced Naruto for good that there was something rotten in the Root. Only total monsters would prevent growing ninja from ingesting the bliss-come-tangible that was real ramen.

He still said Sai-kun, but just as with the drama queen ninja also known as Uchiha Sasuke, he had already come to think of him as only Sai. Sai was a friend. Any friend of his would be deprived like that only over his cold, dead body.

So he had decided to sneak Sai into Ichiraku's. But he couldn't literally sneak him through the river entrance because Sai was rule-happy enough to tell on him and then Naruto would be deprived of his ramen, so he had needed a cover story. In order to achieve this he had attacked Hibari-sensei with vengeance, complaining that how was Sai ever supposed to infiltrate anything if he had the social skills of a gnat, and he needed some real-life practice about subtlety too because he was as subtle as a rasengan to a face.

Naruto was man enough to admit his own faults. Hibari-sensei had acquiesced, because it was all true, and arranged for a Root nin only known as Hyō to act as a fake informant Sai was supposed to deal with while Naruto would arrange a distraction. He was being distracting with all his might and the whole bar knew it. When this was over he would pressgang both Sai and Hibari-sensei into eating at Ichiraku's. It was the Perfect Plan.

He was obviously mastering the art of subtle already.

"I bet I could give you better," the man drawled with a husky voice and put his hand on Naruto's thigh. He swatted it away.

"Sorry, wrong equipment for that," he said with a clear voice that he knew every man, all ninja, could hear over the general conversation. "At times I do bring a lady friend to home, though, when we have left Taiki-kun to my parents for the night. My husband so loves to watch it, all that naughty touching, you see?" The man's eyes bulged and for a second Naruto thought he might have a heart attack.

Every man in the bar was staring at him now, some more openly than the others, and most women were glaring at him like he was a crime against their gender. From the corner of his eyes he could see Sai getting closer to Hyō and then step away again. Mission completed. He rose as gracefully as he could.

"Talking of him, I guess a night out wasn't such a good idea after all. I _miss _him so!" Having said that, Naruto turned around and sashayed out of the bar. He had never known there were so many ways for women to walk before Hibari-sensei had shown him all the suggestive ones.

He met Hibari-sensei and Sai in a shady alley. Sun was setting and the darkness of the alley gave him thrill, he could almost imagine this was really an illicit rendezvous in Iwa.

"Well, that was distracting. Not exactly subtle, but then again, this particular practice mission wasn't really tailored to teach you much. It was more for Sai-kohai's benefit. And Sai-kohai," Hibari-sensei turned around, "Your body language was good, but other than that you are in sore need of training. Your choice of conversation was insulting and your facial expressions not convincing. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Naruto-san. Both of you, expect a lot of this kind of training in the future."

"Great! Now to Ichiraku's!" Naruto was fairly bouncing on his feet.

"Pardon?" Hibari-sensei raised a single eyebrow, coolly like a block of ice. Belatedly Naruto realized that she had probably expected him to be more chastised about his non-subtlety, but whatever, he would do better the next time.

"I'm hungry and we have time and ramen's good," Naruto explained like it was obvious.

"We are returning to the HQ immediately." Hibari-sensei's voice was stern and she turned around, signaling the conversation was over. Naruto grabbed her hand and she couldn't quite hide her flinch. What is the thing with her hands, Naruto wondered, has she some kind of painful skin disease?

He didn't think so. Hibari-sensei never flinched when they were sparring and they got pretty rough. He wanted to know, the need to make it all better was so strong it almost hurt, but this wasn't the right moment in front of Sai, in a dark alley where who knows who might overhear them. Besides, he had to get Sai to Ichiraku's so asking personal questions from the woman with the authority was out, for now.

"Pretty please, Hibari-sensei! Sai has never eaten any real ramen, it has been so long since I have and I bet you could use some ramen too. Ramen makes you happy! Ramen can save your soul! Please, please, please…" He gave his best puppy dog eyes.

"This is beginning to sound like some kind of cult…"

* * *

Sai never asked to be taken in. Okubo Hibari probably never asked for a student, let alone two. Danzō-sama never asked, period.

Naruto-kun hadn't asked to join either, but he was taking it all rather well. All the things that Sai intellectually understood should have made one used to the freedom of the official side of the village feel constrained, abused and miserable seemed to just slide off of his new roommate. And Naruto-kun had this strange kind of innocence about him. Emotional innocence, stubborn in the face of harsh treatment. It reminded him of someone, but he couldn't quite put his finger on whom. Or maybe part of him didn't want to, but there was someone he should remember.

"You can be the Second High Priestess," He heard Naruto-kun promise Okubo-sempai. "Ayame-chan is the First Priestess." He winked at the girl in white appron and she winked back at him. They looked like a brother and a sister. Sai noted that civilians rarely had that good relationship with ninja of any rank. They tended to be too intimidating. Then again, Naruto wouldn't have intimidated a newborn kitten.

It isn't always the big, life-threatening, the fate of world as we know it kind of situations that bring life-altering epiphanies.

"Do you like the miso ramen, Sai-kun?" Naruto-kun asked enthusiastically and looked at him expectantly. Saying no would have been like kicking a puppy.

"It is good, Naruto-kun. It does taste different than the instant kind," he admitted. It was true. It was also true that he would never make High Priest of Ramen, but he didn't need to say that. In the yellow, homely candlelight Naruto-kun's face lit up like a bonfire and Sai briefly hoped he would learn to copy that smile. Surely a smile like that would make anyone trust him.

Trust him so he could betray them later. That was what he was born to do. He looked at Naruto-kun's smile that was beginning to wilt under his silent stare. Did betrayal thrive behind it also? That thought made him feel uneasy and so he concentrated in the taste of his ramen, the fresh bite of ginger and softer taste of miso and soya.

"I have heard of your battle with Gaara-san and how you brought back Uchiha-san. How is it that you can beat someone in battle, go against their belief system, with Gaara-san when your village is in war with theirs, and have them come around?" He remembered a kind smile and hair so much like Naruto-kun's. He didn't want to remember any more.

"Uh, it's a gift? All he needed was a good kick and someone who understood." It was an uphill battle and it wasn't going well.

Okubo-sempai made them leave after her bowl was finished, which meant Naruto-kun had had enough time to practically inhale three bowls. They checked back in to the headquarters as usual, Okubo-sempai sent them on their way, informing them that there would be a formal debriefing the next morning to familiarize Naruto-san with the procedure. She gave him a slight glare and Naruto-kun grinned sheepishly, rubbing his head and Sai wondered just how much he didn't know of how things were done properly. Then they returned to their room, Naruto-kun dragging Sai along like it was a place worth hurry, babbling about nothing and everything. He had been like this the whole time they had known each other, whether Naruto-kun was tickling him or bleeding on the training room and still grinning like a madman, screaming at them to _believe him, _he would master it.

Naruto-kun had lived the room up a lot, though. Sai had no idea when he had gotten his hands on the posters, eyesore-bright pillows everywhere, books and a lamp shaped like a toad, and how. He was strangely reluctant to find out and get Naruto-kun into trouble. despite the Icha Icha book that the Bunny ANBU starred, which Naruto-kun had given him, grinning madly. Of all things he could choose to insinuate.

They washed their teeth, changed into their pajamas and Sai turned the light off. They were both half asleep already when something clicked in Sai's mind and he sat up abruptly, making Naruto-kun turn around in his bed and give him a strange look.

"You proposed that exercise solely so you could take me to that ramen bar, didn't you?" he demanded. The room had naturally no windows and he had hard time seeing Naruto-kun's face in the minimal blue flicker of nightlight. He desperately needed to see his _new, uninvited friend's _face, but he wouldn't move, wouldn't give in to the impulse.

"Yeah, of course," Naruto-kun answered like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Why did you do so? There was nothing in it for you and it was a small thing." His voice was cracking, He didn't like his voice cracking, but he liked not understanding people's motives even less. No one had ever done anything just to make him happy… except… not! No one.

"It wasn't small to you," Naruto-kun said with more perceptiveness than Sai would have liked. It wasn't small, but how could Naruto-kun know when he hadn't known it himself? "Besides, you are one of my precious friends, like Sasuke-baka and Sakura-chan and Neji-kun and Gaara-kun and all my senseis and old man Hokage. One day I'm gonna be the Hokage so I can better protect you all, if you ever try to run away I'll drag you back like that idiot Sasuke and I'm feeding you cause you know nothing of having fun."

Sai had killed the first time when he had been ten years old and it hadn't felt like anything worth mentioning. His second kill had been a member of the Fire daimyo's court, one that had spoken for reducing the support the village received. That the man had also been a pederast interested in boys younger than fifteen had been just an unrelated detail to Danzō-sama, something that had helped them smuggle Sai into the man's quarters. Nothing had happened, but the looks the man had given him had made Sai feel great satisfaction at killing him. The mission had made him feel queasy later, but it hadn't eroded his loyalty to Danzō-sama a bit.

On his seventh assassination mission Sai had been captured. He had known that Danzō-sama wouldn't order a rescue, merely change his plans so that it wouldn't compromise them if Sai broke and had still enough wits left to ask for a paper and pen. He had escaped himself after two days and returned to the Root like the good tool he was and been punished for failing the mission. He hadn't broken then, hadn't betrayed Danzō-sama, though there had been a moment when he had considered it.

All anyone needs to know of Naruto's character is that after all that he was the one to break Sai, it was completely accidental, he did it with a bowl of ramen and three sentences and Sai was left a lot saner, happier and angrier all at once for it. And, at first, mostly happy.

"…His name was Shin." Thus Sai broke and he smiled genuinely the first time since Shin had died. Good thing Naruto's eyes were keen enough to see it in the dark.

* * *

Day 9, suborn count 1.

Recorded by the surveillance seal: Okubo Hibari, Crane, teaching Uzumaki Naruto kinjutsu.

* * *

AN: Does anyone know what Sai's mask is? I have no idea and I would like to know whether there is something canonical or if I should make one up.

About Sai's narutofying: I'm aware this might seem a bit anticlimactic, but they didn't fight in canon either and I wanted it to be something that wouldn't bring their Root superiors asking difficult questions until its their turn.

AN2: I reposted this, because it just kept disappearing. At least this time I got to keep the reviews...


	4. Days 1013: Arts of bang and friendship

**Days 10-13:**** Arts of bang and friendship **

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

* * *

It was a beautiful, warm day. Not that Sai knew anything of that, hidden away in underground military base.

It was their half hour lunch break and Naruto-kun being Naruto-kun had cleaned his plate and drank his coffee in ten minutes and returned to their training room. Sai opened the door and begun to walk to his teammate, freezing mid-step as he took in what he saw. Bright red and blue tatami mats rolled next to the wall, out of their destructive ways, check. A small table full of gunpowder, hollow bamboo sticks, white porcelain shells, small glass and clay bottles and wooden boxes, inkwells, brushes and empty notes, ready for the lesson scheduled for that afternoon: how to combine kayakujutsu, the explosives art, with taijutsu. Check.

Naruto sitting on a bench, knitting. Check?

Sai eyed Naruto-kun and his knitting dubiously. A scarf could be of many practical uses, he readily admitted that. It could be used to tie up captives, bandage wounds and even, in dire need, to keep a person warm. Not that someone who wore a shirt that bared his midriff worried about his neck first when the temperature dropped, but if it was sufficiently long it could be tied around a person's waist too.

But it was a cold, hard truth that pink was not a good colour for a ninja.

"Excuse me, but what are you doing?" Orange aside, he didn't think Naruto-kun would wear that. And he prayed to whatever deity that would listen to a killer like him – maybe Janshin would? – that Naruto-kun wasn't going to try and pressgang him into wearing it.

Naruto-kun twitched. How interesting. He never flinched from any of Sai's questions, even the ones he was apparently expected to know the answers to already, even the ones people weren't, it seemed, supposed to ask, though he at times yelled a lot. The first time that had happened Sai had been afraid he had somehow ruined his friendship with Naruto-kun, but five minutes after that Naruto-kun had acted like nothing was ever wrong. It unnerved Sai. He was used to knowing how people would react to him and if Naruto-kun was a typical specimen of people from outside, then he would be in trouble. Then again, no one had ever acted like Naruto-kun when Sai had been out on missions.

Naruto-kun didn't refuse an answer now either, but he did duck his head a bit, running a hand through his hair with a sheepish chuckle. Something embarrassing then, but Naruto-kun found enough humor in it to answer.

"Knitting. Usually girls do it." It made even less sense now, but it did explain the embarrassment.

"Are you cultivating a more feminine reputation?" Sai had to ask because one never knew with Naruto-kun, what with his Oiroke no Jutsu. And Hāremu no Jutsu. Poor Otter-sempai.

"What? It's for Sakura-chan!" Naruto-kun told him with a glare that promised very painful and very instant sparring session if he dared to laugh.

"I was going to say that pink is a very gay colour," Sai admitted, happy that Naruto-kun had informed him of the truth before he had had time to say so. He was certain it would have been a faux pas. Though apparently admitting he had thought so was as bad, judging by Naruto-kun's frown, even though admitting embarrassing mistakes was supposed to make people relax. Sai sighed inwardly. So many rules. How did civilians and ninja who hadn't been trained to have photographic memory keep them all straight?

"How are you going to send it to Sakura-san?" he asked, anticipating a rant of unholy proportions.

"By mail, of course." Stupid, was implied if not said out loud. He wondered how Naruto-kun would have gotten the scarf to the post office. He wondered how he had gotten the yarns and knitting needles. He wondered who had taught him to knit in the first place and decided he was better off not knowing.

That was when he noticed a paper bag sitting against the leg of Naruto-kun's bench.

"What's in that box?" he asked. Naruto-kun sighed and put his knitting down on the bench beside him. He still had a damp towel across his forehead from their earlier training session. Sai had a feeling he had somehow forgotten it was there.

"Tomiko-chan gave some homemade onigiri for me to eat. She's practising her kunoichi skills."

Which didn't mean seduction, for all 's Icha Icha series told otherwise. The expectation of women, the acceptable gender roles, manners, freedoms and entitlements of the civilian women of hidden villages and the women of outside were very different. The kunoichi were as good as males with two x-chromosomes as far as the society of the villages was concerned. As a result, a kunoichi not taught how to be a traditional woman sent undercover outside wouldn't have fooled a two-year-old child two whole minutes. And part of being a woman was to know how to cook, other than warm mission rations.

Sai approached the box cautiously. He'd heard about Tomiko-san's cooking.

"Have you eaten them?" he asked.

"One," Naruto-kun confessed and shuddered. "But I can't send them back."

"Of course not." Sai agreed. He had no idea why, but Naruto appeared more knowledgeable in these matters. He picked up the bag and opened it with an air of grim determination. He'd had no idea onigiri could be so sticky and dark, or smell like burnt vinegar. He was pretty sure that vinegar wasn't supposed to be used when making onigiri.

"Greater love hath no man that they help their friends put up with maniac cooks," Naruto said and Sai briefly envied how he could make a reference to their friendship so casually, so trustingly.

"I came to tell you that today we don't have the afternoon training and tomorrow Otter-sempai will take over. Hibari-sensei has been assigned a three days mission with Fū-sempai," he said what he had come to tell his roommate. "Danzō-san should know better by now. Some people are plain bad for each other." It was only three days. Sai wondered whether it was too long.

"Why? Don't they like each other?" Naruto-kun asked. Sai knew then that he would have to get Naruto-kun away from the Root. Of course he had known it all along, but that innocent question only highlighted how Naruto-kun still had no idea how badly he had been screwed over and Sai wanted to keep things like that. I was almost like saving himself, in a way.

It all came down to trust. It wouldn't pay to risk his life for Naruto and never get his money back.

"That is not the issue. Hibari-sempai and Fū-sempai are in as friendly terms with each other as Root nin ever are. It's simply that Hibari-sempai has issues, Fū-sempai has similar issues and when they spend prolonged time together they tend to set each other off."

Human mind was a strange beast. Hibari-sempai could be sent to Iwa on a mission and it wouldn't make a dent to her armor, Fū-sempai had executed many missions like Operation 137B, or Spinach Yogurt, without blinking, but together they would unravel each other's control. Fū-sempai merely got maudlin, at least. Hibari-sempai would have an _episode_.

For all Danzō-san prided himself for creating emotionless shinobi and kunoichi, Sai knew that wasn't possible. He could make them neglect their feelings, ignore their feelings, deny they ever existed in the first place and all around make them totally incapable of recognizing and handling them, but they weren't quite nutty enough to not have any.

"We have to put the equipment away. But I'm going to quiz you!" Sai promised and Naruto groaned. Wasn't paying attention to his training supposed to make Naruto happy? He was strange and inconsistent in his reactions.

"Why do we need to learn to make bombs when we can make explosive tags and how are those equipment used?" he asked.

"Cause the chakra infused into the notes can be detected so bombs are stealthier," Naruto explained, rolling his eyes. "Bamboo is used for ambushes along roadways, bottles are used in the city to distract people. Wooden boxes are used more to attack castles or fortifications, shells are used for smoke bombs. Also, explosions rock! The bigger the better." Now Naruto was happy again, smiling that illuminating smile of his and pumping his fist up and down enthusiastically.

"Explosions are art!" Sai disagreed with that and said as much. _He_ knew what true art was and wanton destruction wasn't even distantly related.

"Not religion?" Religions weren't supposed to make sense.

"That's reserved for ramen." Figures.

* * *

It was a beautiful, warm day, full of golden sunlight. There was a slight breeze from the open window that carried the invigorating scent of juniper trees and witch hazel from the garden outside the Hokage Tower. It was just the kind of day that Sarutobi Hiruzen liked to laze away, reading Icha Icha, but the man standing in front of him was like a storm cloud. Kakashi wasn't going to let him. He was going to make Sarutobi's life utterly miserable until he recalled Naruto.

"Why can't you already extract him? By now Naruto should have proved, and the seal recorded, the existence of Root and Danzō-san's involvement. Please pinpoint his seal and end this madness!" Those who abandon their mission are trash, but those that abandon their comrades are worse than trash. Hatake Kakashi hadn't ceased to plead Naruto's case for a day. That was undoubtly why the Sandaime Hokage had sent him to a week's mission from which he had only now returned.

"The latter is not guaranteed, but still, if that was all I wanted he would be extracted as we speak. I do not enjoy the thought of Naruto-kun in Root." Sandaime's voice was long-suffering, but he avoided Kakashi's eye.

"What more do you want?" That question was what it all boiled down to. What could be worth traumatizing Naruto whose life had been difficult enough already?

"If all I wanted was to nail Danzō-san what we have now would likely be enough, but there are also the council members who have known and looked the other way to consider. They are guilty of aiding and abetting, but aiding and abetting what exactly? They have political power. If all we can prosecute them for is hiding Root's existence the sentence can hardly be more than dishonorable discharge from their position as we don't want to cause a civil war. If we can prosecute them for hiding kidnappings, unauthorized assassinations and regular breaking of the village's constitutional law and treaties with foreign villages…" In the other words, politics.

For some reason Sandaime was staring a burn mark on his desk, beside little orange book. It was telling of Kakashi's mood that he was gleeful to have interrupted the sacred moment of reading good porn.

Worst of it was that he could see why Sandaime was doing this, even though he did not agree. In ideal situation they could seize at least some of Root's paperwork, but the Root nin were reputed to be extremely capable and were undoubtly under orders to destroy all evidence should they become under siege. He had to work with the assumption that what Naruto's surveillance seal recorded would be all hard evidence they could get.

"So, the worse things are for Naruto the better they are for you?" It wasn't that he wouldn't be happy to see Mitokado Homura and the harpy Utatane Koharu, Danzō's authoritarian flunkies and Sandaime's treacherous teammates, removed and given their just desserts, preferably along with several others. But this was about Naruto. Remove the head of the snake and the rest of the Council troublemakers should loose face and most of their unofficial power. That would be enough.

"If we don't do this right now we only have to do it again later." That was a reason, but…

"That wasn't no."

* * *

Danzō's house, like every council members', was traditional and beautiful. It had a pleasant, airy atmosphere with a large garden with old trees and a fountain where he kept goldfish. There was a bamboo fence woven into a square-meshed weave. There was only one ima, living room, under the roof, while kitchen, bathroom, and toilet are attached on the side of the house as extensions. Sliding doors made from wood and paper, old-fashioned hearth, deep, aesthetic bathtub sunken into the floor in the bathroom.

But it was all show. There was a metal fence between two layers of bamboo and it could be electrified, the wood and paper were reinforced with seals and there was a heater below the hearth. Danzō believed in tradition only as long as it didn't conflict with functionality.

The master of the house was sitting on a porch, sipping tea, with two folders on his lap. The thicker one was that of Naruto's training and he wasn't satisfied at all. The jinchūriki might be rather good fighter already, but he wasn't cut out to be a ninja. There was a kind of innocence about Naruto that even a small war and defection of his best friend couldn't take away from him. It wasn't the innocence of someone with no blood on their hands, but a sort of an innocence of the soul that stuck to him like bad smell.

(Danzō really didn't want to believe in souls. He couldn't.)

Naruto would refuse a mission to kill a child and the Hokage would let him. Luckily this wasn't up to the Hokage anymore. But small steps, better lead the boy little by little. Him running and having to be hunted down and killed would be a sad waste of resources.

The thinner folder was about Fū, a kunoichi from Takigakure and the jinchūriki of the Seven-Tailed Horned Beetle. She was of Naruto's age and relatively stable, though there was some evidence of her suffering from bipolar disorder, her cheerful, active periods followed by periods of depression. The green-haired girl that smiled to him from the picture would be perfect for ridding Naruto from the naïve innocence holding him back.

Every shinobi and kunoichi of Konoha had to follow any order given to them, hold mission a priority over one's self and comrades, to be ready to use any means necessary. Only so the village would stay strong, be safe from foreign attacks. The Chûnin Exam Siege had proved Danzō right; but still the Hokage insisted on coddling the ninja, damaging them. Uzumaki Naruto would become a true member of Root and this would be his initiation: to kill a fellow jinchūriki, one who did not "deserve" to be killed, for the safety and glory of Konoha.

* * *

Combining kayakujutsu with taijutsu had been a huge hit as far as Naruto was concerned. He hadn't even known you could have explosions in those colours. Equipped with visors, long, thick, fire-resistant gloves and smoky blue blast protection sheet made of some smooth, plastic-like material they had turned their training room into a laboratory. The explosions hadn't been very potent, for obvious reasons, and Naruto could barely wait to get to test them in the field.

The drawing lessons were a lot less fun. He looked at the picture he had made of Hibari-sensei. Good enough. He dropped the pen to the desk and reached for his glass of ice tea. It was lukewarm.

"Bombs were fun to make, but I still like explosive tags better. They are easier to use," he said to Sai who was sitting cross-legged on his bed, a book in his hand. When he had begun refurnishing their room it had been divided in two, his messy, lively side of it and Sai's neat, clinical, depressing side. By now many of his things had drifted to Sai's space, his toad lamp for example, and several pillows. One was resting next to Sai's leg, bright orange with a picture of a bowl of ramen.

Sai didn't comment on his statement, but he put the book down, after carefully marking the page, and stared at Naruto with intensity that made him uncomfortable. He grinned at Sai; he never liked to show when he was uncomfortable. People were counting on him to be strong. He was going to be Hokage one day and Hokages were not uncomfortable.

"According to one of my books friendship is mutually co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more people. In this sense, the term connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, affection, and respect along with a degree of rendering service to friends in times of need or crisis," Sai said, completely off topic. He wasn't smiling, which was a good thing, since he still got it wrong pretty often.

"Sure," he said. He didn't really get why his friend was pretending to be a dictionary.

"Friends will welcome each other's company and exhibit loyalty towards each other, often to the point of altruism. Yet for some, the practical execution of friendship is little more than the trust that someone will not harm them." Aha, he was insecure. Life in the Root really must have sucked.

"Sound all kinds of fancy explanation. It's the most simple thing in the world." Friend liked each other and protected each other, noticed if evil nukenin was trying to impersonate them, kicked their asses if they deserved it and fed each other. And friends never, ever, under any circumstance abandoned or betrayed each other. Some needed more practice with that than other. Naruto thought of Sasuke. But a true friend would also be patient and go after their idiot teammate and promise to help them kill their brother.

If they wanted to kill their brother, that was. If they didn't then it would just be creepy.

"Bear with me. I am only now getting reacquainted with the concept. You seem to love quite easily, but how can I be sure you won't fall out of love?" Sai asked with the same tone of voice he had earlier asked Naruto if he liked beef ramen of miso ramen better and if he ever fantasized of sex with Tsunade-sama, all in the name of getting the knowledge part down.

"I don't," Naruto said with absolute certainty. "I don't know how people do. I have never stopped loving anyone once I loved them first."

Speaking of love went against grain, in a way, and Naruto's voice was strained. He was a thirteen-year-old boy and saying that he loved someone, even in the non-romantically, manly-friendly way, almost hurt his throat when it tried to swallow the words and save his dignity. Maybe it was even because it was friendship-love that needs not say its name. That was the way it was with Sasuke, but for all similarities they had Sai was not Sasuke. He needed to know this stuff and not helping friend who _needed _hurt more than suicide of dignity. It helped a little that Sai didn't notice.

"Here it is," he said, frowning. Sai was helping him with his drawing lessons and they were going… well, they were going. Naruto didn't have one artistic bone in his body, but he had managed to hide a picture of a building layout into a toad and his picture of Hibari-sensei was recognizable at least.

"The retrieval of Uchiha Sasuke, alive and unharmed even after he put an A-class lightning jutsu through your chest vouches for the validity of that statement. I reap the benefits of your mental disorder," Sai said and frowned as he looked at the picture. When it came to art he was a perfectionist.

"Are you saying I am crazy?" Because a friend or no, Naruto wasn't going to put up with that.

"Sanity and insanity are a matter of social norms. In every society there is widely accepted definition for mentally normal. When one differs from it enough, one way or another, one can be classified as abnormal. Even if it is beneficial for the society as a whole; as in your case, since your abnormal incapacity to fall out of love has most likely protected this village from being burned to the ground." Sai's voice was placating.

Well, that was sort of a compliment. Maybe. It was really hard to tell when it was Sai talking.

"Then you are crazy too!" he shouted, because even if it was a compliment that didn't mean he would let Sai be nuts and not called on it if he was, even though he really wasn't. But if he wasn't, was Sai? Naruto frowned; he had confused himself.

"I know. Similar personalities are supposed to be good for the strength of the friendship also so it all works out." Sai smiled and it was that annoying fake smile, but there was something behind it, something Naruto hadn't learned to read despite his Sasuke-related practice. The Last Angsty Uchiha never smiled, except that one time when Naruto had managed to dye Kakashi-sensei's hair pink without the man noticing it.

"You are mental and your books too." Books! Nothing good ever came from reading books, except jutsu.

"What is the craziest jutsu you have ever done?" he asked. And after a blank moment of bemusement, when Naruto had half given up hope, Sai's face twitched and that was honest-to-kami snort. A soundless one, but a snort still.

"When we made tracks with Shin," Sai answered, the sad, tender feeling that was all too familiar to Naruto crossing his face. He was becoming downright expressive. Or maybe not.

"We would use earth type jutsu to create fake tracks, to make it look as if something weird had been walking down the road. I did monkey tracks and Shin did goats."

That, Naruto decided, was a great idea. It would be so cool to distract enemy nin like that and all the kinds of funny footprints he could make too! He laughed out loud.

"I would make giant lizards. You have _got _to teach that to me. Just imagine what kind of pranks that could be used for! Even better than the pink hair dye." It was fun.

It was fun, dammit but Sai wasn't laughing. Now he looked blank again and Naruto wondered if he had split personality or something, because mood swings like that just weren't normal. Unless you were a pregnant woman, and now the Sai in Naruto's head wore a maternity dress. And ballet flats made for pregnant swelling feet. Great.

"Naruto-kun. There is something you should know." And Sai struck his tongue out. At first Naruto thought he was trying to insult him, but the angry retort died on his tongue when he realized that there was something written on Sai's; a blocky hexagram.

And Sai told him how, when the wearer of this Cursed Seal spoke about anything related to Danzo to one not in the Root, their entire body would be paralyzed, taking away their ability to speak or move.

* * *

Day 13, suborn count 1.

Recorded by the surveillance seal: ANBU operative Crane, Okubo Hibari, and nonregistered Root operative Fū being sent to a mission not sanctioned by the mission office. Creation and repeated use of a Cursed Seal that breaks the constitutional law of Konohagakure no Sato by Danzō.

* * *

AN1: I didn't make it up! Kayakujutsu, literally the art of gunpowder, is the use of firearms, gunpowder and explosives especially by ninja. The history and mythology surrounding ninjutsu and kayakujutsu are similar to the history of chemistry and the mythology surrounding alchemy. Thus kayakujutsu mysticism refers to elements like the Earth (Chi) to develop Fire (Kaji) just as alchemy referred to elements just as air, earth, fire and water.

But where are these darker themes coming from? I'm trying to write humor, dammit! And so: my first ever silly Omake: Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend kunoichi style! Imagine the Bunny ANBU singing this in a shady bar.

The ninja were bred to die for state  
They delight in assassinations  
But I prefer a man who lives  
And gives expensive weapons  
A kiss on the hand may be quite continental  
But weapons are a girl's best friend

A kiss may be grand but it won't pay the rental  
Like mission pay will, or help you with a kill  
Men become scarce as girls become scarred  
And we all lose few fights in the end  
But blunt weapons or sharp-edged  
These beauties will give you an edge  
Weapons are a girl's best friend

...Kusarigama ... Kodachi...  
Talk to me, Sengo Muramasa, tell me all about it!  
There may come a time when a kunoichi needs to vent  
But weapons are a girl's best friend

There may come a time when a hard-boiled client  
Thinks you're awful good  
But better be good lay, or else no pay  
He's only bold when he thinks he's stronger  
Introduce him to your weapon's business end  
It's then that those louses crawl back to their spouses  
Weapons are a girl's best friend

I've heard of missions that are strictly reconnaissance  
But weapons are a girl's best friend

And from seduction missions you must distance yourself once  
Its done or you'll be done if the identifying part was overdone  
Time rolls on and strength of youth is gone  
And you can't straighten up when you bend  
But stiff back or broken bone  
You stand straight at the Memorial Stone

Weapons... Weapons...  
- I don't mean pretty stones -  
But Weapons, Are A Girl's Best Friends

AN2: Sengo Muramasa was a famous swordsmith who founded the Muramasa school and lived during the Muromachi period (16th century) in Japan. His school was famous for the extraordinary sharpness of their blades.

God knows where this inspiration came from.


	5. Days 14 – 15: A friend in need

**Days 14 – 15: A friend in need**

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

* * *

Naruto would never put it like that, didn't even realise it, but his friendship with Sasuke was actually kind of unhealthy, an odd mixture of taking things at face value, so deep understanding it hurt and uneven rivalry. Sai was just as socially retarded as Sasuke, used his patented blank look where Sasuke scowled, still refused to tell Naruto what his mask was and had recently taken to making comments about his dick, but he was actively being friend. He was working on getting the middle ground work in addition to the extremes. The first attempts weren't always great and doing friendship by books tended to lead to hilarious results, but he was doing his best and it made Naruto feel at ease. Like he could let go of Sai, metaphorically speaking, and he wouldn't just run away.

Didn't mean he was going to let Sai get away with calling him dickless. If he did the next thing he knew Sai would do so in public. Sai messed with his head, fine! Then he would mess with Sai's.

"There are various schools of the Knitting Ninja," Naruto said. "The Knitters of Konoha often use cable knitting to make the product denser and less elastic, while the Lace Knitters of Suna include various types of bobbles, sequins and beads in their work and sell it to the daimyo." Sai looked at his two knitting needles and baby blue yarn and frowned.

"When you secure the previous stitch in a wale, the next stitch can pass through the previous loop from below or above. If it's the former it's as a knit stitch; if it's the latter it's a purl stitch," he instructed. Sai frowned, a tiny little suspicion dawning in his mind.

"Naruto-kun, you are _serious _about this?" he asked. Naruto smirked.

"Of course I am. Listen to Naruto-sensei and keep on working on those socks for me," Naruto ordered happily. The joy of being Naruto was that everybody thought he was too obvious to mess with their heads. But under that happy he was glancing towards the door uneasily.

Hibari-sensei had returned from her mission and they were expecting her in the training room. Naruto was pretty worried for his sensei, even though he did his best to not show it. He wasn't sure what Sai had meant by "episode", but the word made his stomach churn the same way when they had hauled practically paralyzed Kakashi-sensei to Tazuna-baka's house, or when he had seen Sandaime standing against Orochimaru and realized there was a chance the old man just might loose. He didn't like Kakashi-sensei paralyzed or the Sandaime falling and he didn't want his newest responsible-adult having a mental meltdown.

"When do you think she will come?" he asked and that was when the door slid open with a thud and Hibari-sensei walked in, business as usual. She looked stern but not mad and Naruto let out a sigh of relief. Of course she was alright.

"Naruto-san, Sai-kohai," she greeted them with a nod, stopping half a room away from them. "This day's lesson has been cancelled. Please return to your quarters and no not leave without a permission from a superior officer." Her body language was flawlessly relaxed as she walked out of the room. Naruto gave Sai a hesitant look.

"She isn't okay, is she?" he asked. No one had any business being that good at faking it. How was he supposed to know when to help people if they didn't show they needed it?

He knew now, of course, but that wasn't the point.

"I believe we should obey her," was Sai's answer and before Naruto had a chance to say anything a loud boom rocked the room. The cement floor shook, making Naruto do a quick jump to regain his footing, and angry echoes raced through the corridor loud enough to be heard through the heavy door.

"Like fuck we will. Nobody gets left behind!" he snarled. As he turned to run after Hibari-sensei he saw Sai throw the needles and yarn to the floor.

The corridor had been blocked by the explosion in the left and when they tried to circle after Hibari-sensei it was blocked by other Root operatives, all without masks looking cross between exasperated and teeny, tiny glint of something they probably didn't realize was pity.

"You know," Sai whispered as he bodily dragged Naruto away from the nin blocking their way, "We are still small enough that we should fit into the vents." That was more than Naruto had expected and that moment, just for being himself and there and putting up with him and Hibari-sensei, Naruto could have kissed Sai. Because lewd comments about his dick aside, now he needed help and Sai came through for them so good…

"Even though you have all the experience of a rock that was dropped on it's head as a baby. I adore you." Utterly.

"Thank you?" Sai said. Obviously he didn't understand yet, but few understood the magnificence that was Uzumaki Naruto. And off they were to rescue Hibari-sensei from blowpipe-wielding iryō-nins.

They were small enough to fit the vents, but only barely. It was a tight fit, especially around the shoulders. It was so dark even Kyūbi's sight was barely any use at all and the vents were so confusing, but Naruto trusted his sense of smell. There were scents on skin and body's oils, heavy and earthly and unique, and among them one that had Naruto blindly crawl towards it, one that said Hibari and her favourite sword oil and pain.

When Naruto first saw her she was pacing like a caged animal. It was a testament to how distracted she was that she didn't even notice him spying on her from between the dusty metal sheets. Sai a supporting, trustworthy presence at his back, a back-up, he kicked the grating down and dropped down to what turned out to be someone's, Hibari-sense's, living quarters.

Hibari-sensei drew his sword and turned around with one quick, but jerky movement and snarled at them when she saw who they were.

"Didn't I tell you to stay away?" she asked and gestured with her blade towards her door which had been blocked by little white paper strips filled with black and red seals.

"Those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash! We would never!" Naruto protested. Sai was moving nervously, but let him do the talking.

"So you care for me?" Hibari-sensei's voice was dry and flat-out mean. She let her sword, a double-edged tipless tantō, drop to the floor with loud, metallic clanking. Then she grabbed first her left glove and then her right, dragging them off with jerky, angry movements. Her every muscle was tense in a way that screamed barely restrained violence to Naruto and he felt his own body react, readying himself. But all Hibari-sensei did was to lift one hand and then push it to Naruto's face. It was a completely normal-looking hand; no skin-disease, no scars, no nothing. If anything it looked a lot softer than most kunoichi's hands, probably because of the glove that had protected it. He had already opened his mouth to ask when, without warning, the palm opened.

"Is that connected to your stomach?" was what Naruto blurted out.

There were no real lips, the skin just parted to reveal white teeth, perfectly normal human teeth, and longish pink tongue, wet with saliva. _The mouth on her palm_, or should it be _in her palm_, opened wide so that Naruto could see something like throat, except in was inside her wrist, a dark cavity. The bird is flying in, Naruto thought. Combined with the ANBU mask that suddenly reminded him of a woman with a cat mask who had said it to him once, feeding him something that was mashed, yellow and sweet. He had always wondered why ANBU masks made him feel kind of homely…

It was wrong in a way, out of place, malformed, but Naruto crushed that feeling mercilessly. Because Hibari-sensei acted like she thought it was something disgusting and no one should be disgusted of themselves and Naruto had no business being disgusted either. And, beneath the reasoning the little boy in him was squealing, utterly amazed.

"Okubo is my mother's name. If I went by my father's name I would be Mori Hibari," she said with a low, intense voice, obviously expecting him to say something. The tongue licked his cheek and Naruto ewwed inwardly, considering the possibility that the Mori were somehow related to Anko-san.

"Aha?" he answered. She gritted her teeth. He couldn't see it, but he could hear. And she let her arm drop to her side; it had surely begun to seem a bit silly to her, holding it to his face. But the mouth didn't really close again, there were slight cracks like she was breathing through them, on her both palms.

"Are those connected to your lungs?" he asked because Hibari-sensei hadn't hit him for it the last time.

"The Mori are a famous Kekkei Genkai clan from Iwagakure. This is their Kekkei Genkai, called Majikuchi." She shrugged and made a vague gesture with her right hand. "Aptly named, isn't it?" She struck her tongue out, the palm tongue.

"Cool," he said and it was, even if it was also very creepy. Shinobi or no shinobi, he was still a boy and boys think things like frogs, insects that lay eggs inside other, living insects and being able to fart your village anthem are cool. Mouths on palms fell into the same category.

"What does it do? Can you just bite your enemy and hit them at the same time, or does it do some cool jutsu?"

"This is Iwa Kekkei Genkai!" Hibari-sensei shouted. Her voice broke halfway through the sentence.

She was fairly stomping her feet now and Naruto's mind boggled at the emotional display. Hibari-sensei was always cool and collected, even when she was angry. Except not now, it seemed. He had no idea what Hibari-sensei's problem was, but he could see it was important and he knew that they were running out of time. Getting short with tranquilizer wouldn't help anyone.

"So who cares where it is from? Good thing for us you defected cause you are wicked good kunoichi," he said. Hibari-sensei wasn't as good as Tsunade-baachan, but very few people were in the whole world. She still rocked.

"I did not defect! My mother was in a relationship with a man who later turned out to be an Iwa spy! And he ran away and left me dealing with this!" Now her hands were pressed into tight fists and she was one word from attacking him, but it didn't matter because now Naruto understood.

He saw from the corner of his eyes that Sai was making gestures at the door and threw his head towards the vents, telling him to climb back up. No reason to get them both into trouble. Sai looked at the vent, then at Naruto and shook his head. He wasn't going to go and Naruto wasn't sure if he was angry or happy, but there was no time to argue with Sai now.

"He left your mother? What a bastard! I hope your mother kicked his ass so hard he could taste his own shit!" Because Naruto respected women. First Sakura-chan and then Tsunade-baachan had taught him early in life what too many men never learned: there were no men and women. There were people. Some of them had nice, soft breasts and other had dicks - and he had one dammit! - but it didn't really matter that much if you weren't having sex at the moment, and breast only impaired men's brains. And the point was that everybody had to be respected the same or else. It wasn't fair that men could get away with things like that and women would be in trouble.

"My Kekkei Genkai is from Iwa," she said very slowly, like trying to explain it to someone very slow minded. Naruto honestly didn't see what there was left to understand beyond what she had already said.

"So, your father was a real bastard and a spy from Iwa, but at least you got cool abilities out of it? Sucks to be them, maybe they will think twice next time." Naruto really hoped so, but somehow he doubted. Idiots stayed idiots unless somebody kicked it out of them.

"I have Iwa Kekkei Genkai in Konoha! My life is in ruins and it's not my fault! I hate that man! If I ever find out who it was, exactly, I will kill him!" Her voice rose at least an octave.

"Whoa, how come your life is ruined? I have Kyūbi sealed into me in Konoha and my life isn't, so for sure yours isn't either. But if you want to kill him, I'm all for it. People who leave women pregnant and run are scum."

"And me saying I will kill my father does not bother you in the least?" It was a good question and it did bother Naruto. Patricide, killing your own father, was so wrong on so many levels Naruto couldn't even began to explain why it felt so wrong. It was everything! It was just plain wrong! But he could understand people and he understood that Hibari-sensei wouldn't really do it, even if she found her father. She was only saying so to make herself feel better. Naruto wasn't sure how people lied to themselves. It made no sense because they knew all the time anyway, right? At least they should have. But they still lied and he could play along if it made this better.

"Sasuke wants to kill his brother. It happens." That didn't bother him, but then, Sasuke had a _very _good reason.

Hibari looked at him and he watched her. The silence was deafening and they really didn't have the time so Naruto lunged and threw his arms around her shoulders and clung to her like a squid. And she sobbed. Four sobs that wracked her body so hard that Naruto's teeth rattled, and something small and wet dropped to his cheek. Then Hibari-sensei went limp and fell to her knees, bringing Naruto down with him. Naruto lifted his eyes from her black hakama to her almost black eyes that were shining, wet, hopeful.

"Do you swear?" Hibari-sensei asked. Naruto nodded and grabbed her hands. The mouths were shut now and they felt just like normal hands.

"I swear! You are gonna be alright!" She answered to his hug awkwardly.

That was when the pursuers burst into the room. Sai turned to fully look at them and took a step back, his expression torn, the men and a woman in masks and full ANBU regalia froze for a second when they saw Naruto in Hibari's undoubtly deadly arms and that was enough time for her to open her mouth.

"I yield," she stated simply and let her arms drop. Her eyes were dry now and her face serene; she was master of herself again.

For another second there were stares Naruto could see even through the masks, white and forever grinning with animal smiles. Then the ANBU moved fluidly, restringing Hibari-sensei, who looked bizarrely content even when her arms were twisted behind her back. Naruto complained, Hibari-sensei assured him it was all right, Sai smiled and it looked very good and the stares that just went on were fish cakes on top of the ramen.

"So," Naruto said with a wicked grin as they walked Hibari-sensei out, "_Are _those connected to your stomach?" Everybody tensed, even Sai, but Hibari-sensei smiled. It was a beautiful smile even though her eyes were red and puffy and her cheeks streaked with tears.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

* * *

It was day number fifteen after the Forces of Evil had grabbed Naruto when Hatake Kakashi decided that obviously his tactics of guilt-tripping the Hokage wasn't going to work. For all the man twitched every time he stepped into his office and had the last time even given a longing glance to the window, he wasn't budging an inch. So what was a jōnin to do?

Call in reinforcements of course.

So Kakashi was sitting under a pale green awning and drinking iced tea, apparently reading his newest Icha Icha Violence, but an observant witness could have told he wasn't turning any pages.

It would have to be someone who cared for Naruto, obviously. Someone fairly important and with the balls to order the Hokage around and intimidation factor could only help. Umino Iruka cared, but he was only a chûnin so if Sarutobi-san wasn't listening to Kakashi he wouldn't listen to the Academy teacher either. Any of the clan heads could raise merry hell over this, but the trouble was that they wouldn't, for all they didn't seem to outright resent Naruto anymore, not unless he told them the truth of his student and while that might help short-term it would bring serious long-term consequences, in addition of himself getting court-martialed for revealing an S-class secret.

The rest of council members would only be too happy to recall Naruto if he told them why he was in the Root, but that would defeat the purpose of nailing them.

His ears caught a wolf whistle and Kakashi turned his head around on instinct born out of years he had used for cultivating his reputation as a pervert and his eyes, but the visible one and the one hidden under his hitai-ite, widened. Pale, golden hair reflecting the sun's brilliant light, long, shapely legs revealed by short skirt, very generous assets and even more generous neckline, hazel brown eyes glittering with warning of the infamous finger flick of doom and a violet diamond tattooed on her forehead between them. She moved with the grace of a very high class geisha or a very big and dangerous cat. Senju Tsunade, the last of the Senju clan, Sarutobi Hiruzen's student and the new Head Iryō-nin of the Konoha Hospital.

A very dangerous woman who really, really didn't like the way the ninja were considered expendable even in a relatively easy-going village like Konoha, who had only returned for Naruto's sake. Kakashi smiled in a way that had sent shiver down many esteemed Iwa ANBU's spine and walked briskly to the woman.

"Has anyone ever told you that you are perfection incarnate?" he asked. Tsunade-sama turned her head deceptively slowly and raised her hand, her forefinger against her thumb.

"Hatake Kakashi-san," she fairly purred and had the situation been a bit different he would have appreciated it a lot.

"It's nothing perverted. This is about Naruto. He needs your help now." Tsunade-sama lowered her hand by few inches, narrowing those radiant eyes, and despite his outer cool and calm (hip and cool attitude, no thanks to Gai-san for that one) his inner self was jumping up and down with glee.

* * *

Danzō was looking at the boy, still in that accursed orange jumpsuit, who was sitting opposite to him, his desk covered in mountains of papers a barrier between them. And he had an uncomfortable feeling that a barrier of some kind was needed.

The last time he had spoken to Uzumaki Naruto the boy had been fidgeting, which might have been boredom, but which he had chosen to interpret as nervousness. Now Uzumaki was holding his head higher and his eyes reminded Danzō unnervingly of late Namikaze Minato. The Yondaime Hokage had been a man who could move mountains if he felt there was need and for all his offspring was undignified and fairly ridiculous with his obsessions, he had apparently taken after his father more than Danzō had known.

"I offer my congratulations for your show of understanding of human mind. Have you considered specializing in interrogation?" he asked mildly. Uchiha-san might have been a fluke and Sabaku no Gaara a coincidence, but three times already formed a pattern. It was peculiar how someone so straightforward and obnoxious could be so apt at manipulation. Too bad this compromised Hibari-san.

"No, I have not, and your people skills suck. These people need some joy in their lives. Scratch that, they need a life. And that Cursed Seal of yours is plain evil, what are you anyway, Orochimaru-wannabe?" Naruto-san's voice was loud and grating. His voice had yet to break the first time and that such a childish, ignorant voice questioned him was unacceptable.

Danzō felt the burning in his eye under the bandages, was sorely tempted to rip them off and give the insolent, out-of-control weapon a reminder of its place, but he merely gripped the edge of his desk until his knuckles stood out white and sharp.

"Do not compare me to that nukenin! I am a loyal servant of Konoha and all I do is for the protection of its people, even when naïve idiots like you refuse to acknowledge this." How was it even possible, Danzō lamented, that out of four, count them, four Hokages half had been soft hearted tree-huggers?

Then again, the Professor had been a good Hokage before he had suffered monumental lapse of judgement and named Namikaze Minato his follower. The man hadn't been himself ever since. That line could be blamed for much.

"You think you can protect people by hurting them? I wouldn't agree with you about sky being blue if you said so!" Naruto-_kun _protested, his arguments having sunk back to the Academy level. Danzō would have felt vindicated if he hadn't been so baffled.

"What would you call it then?" If the little ingrate said green… He probably would.

"Periwinkle." Or not. Danzō wasn't artistic in the least and he wasn't one to dazzle with fashionable clothing, but even he knew what periwinkle was.

"One, periwinkle is a shade of blue so in effect you are agreeing with me. Two, it isn't even the shade of sky." Take that, he thought smugly.

"Statistically sky is more often periwinkle than light blue, believe it!" But Naruto-kun refused to acknowledge his winning arguments. And as far as he was concerned the sky was _never _periwinkle.

"This conversation has veered wildly out of control. You have been given an S-class mission at Takigakure, your team will consist of operatives Fū, Sai and Tomiko. The nature of this mission will be revealed to you once you reach Takigakure's borders. You leave immediately and please, remember to take your mask with you. You need to comply with utmost secrecy; Akatsuki agent Hoshigaki Kisame has been detected in the vicinity of your target, the jinchūriki of the Seven-Tailed Horned Beetle." He would have Naruto whipped right when the insolent whelp returned from this mission. He would have the whelp now if it only didn't delay him from leaving and granting him a moment of peace. He would just brief Fū and call this a day.

Naruto was momentarily distracted by imagining how ridiculous a seven-tailed giant beetle would look like, but he kept his priorities straight. Where Kisame was would also be Itachi and this unknown jinchūriki probably needed his help. Also, he and Sai could protect him or her from Danzō's schemes and then he would go to talk to the old man, because the way Danzō treated these people had to be criminal.

Naruto didn't know it, but he was Namikaze Minato's child through and through. His father had passed a lot on to his child: his colouring, stubbornness, love of ramen and taste for red-heads if pink counts as red, his charisma and his habit of making the impossible possible.

"I'm going," Naruto-san declared like it was his decision and Danzō gritted his teeth as he watched the young genin march out of his office, slamming the door shut as he exited. A few weeks' worth of peace, he promised himself. Whipping then.

* * *

In a small utility closet where Sai had managed to drag Okubo Hibari off when Fū had looked the other way. Jiraiya of the Sannin would have had a field day with this had he known.

"We have to do something about this. Naruto-kun isn't cut out for this," Sai said. Okubo Hibari nodded glumly, turning her head towards where he knew the Hokage Tower was, like he could see it through the ceiling and ground and buildings like a Hyūga.

"You have his back on this mission. I will take care of things at this end." She knew she wasn't going to like this plan. She was going through with it anyway.

Poor Danzō, and poor, poor Hokage. It was going to be an interesting afternoon.

* * *

Day 15, suborn count 2.

Recorded by the surveillance seal: A genin jinchūriki sent by Danzō to an unsanctioned, by the mission office, council and Hokage, S-class mission of unknown but dubious nature to a non-hostile village, despite the presence of at least one Akatsuki nukenin having been detected near its borders.

* * *

AN: As far as I know the name of Deidara's bloodline, or his family name, have never been revealed. Maji = 1) (archaism) charmed and cursed**; **(2) something that bewilders**; **something that leads one astray**; **the work of demons. Kuchi = mouth. Ergo, Majikuchi would be something like cursed/charmed mouth, depending on interpretation. Please bear with my amateur pigeon Japanese. The grammar might be whacked, but I can't actually speak any Japanese.

So sorry for giving you wrong information: iryō-nin is a medic nin.


	6. Interlude: Them meddling kids

**Interlude: Them meddling kids**

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

* * *

Ninja must always complete their mission. This was the most important Ninja Rule (the one with the footnote about not abandoning your comrades) and Sakura was a woman with a mission. Her back-up: Hyūga Hinata. Her mission objective: find out where one loud idiot called Naruto, who really didn't have any business worrying her like this, had gone to.

Sakura had also taken to subtly encouraging Hinata-chan to tell Naruto-san about her feelings, because she had recently began to feel guilty of the way she kept brushing him off so callously and making doe eyes at Sasuke-kun, but she couldn't love Naruto like that, so there wasn't much to do, and it would be much easier if Naruto-san got interested in Hinata-chan instead. She was pretty, classy and rich to boot so she was a great catch, and she had been in love with Naruto-san as long as Sakura had been in love with her Sasuke-kun so she was the one most deserving of Naruto-san too.

Sakura wouldn't have to worry about her treating Naruto-san badly. She was a good girl. And maybe, if Naruto fell for her Sakura could begin to call him Naruto-kun and not be misunderstood. It would make her feel more like friends and she had always been a lonely girl, even more so after her and Ino's break up.

It was day ten AD (after disappearance) and they were sitting at Ichiraku, apparently eating shrimp ramen and in truth cleverly collecting information. It turned out to be easier than anticipated.

"He was here just yesterday night," Teuchi-san told them all too happily, his white teeth glinting in the sun in a way that unnervingly reminded Sakura of certain Maito Gai. "I had been rather worried, since he usually tells us when he is leaving the village on a mission, too. He was with this beautiful lady with the hitai-ite and a shinobi his age who looked so much like Uchiha Sasuke they might have been twins."

"How did Naruto look like? What were their names? Did he tell where he was going to?" Sakura launched on the friendly old man like the interrogation department. She dimly noticed that Teuchi-san was beginning to look both taken aback by her ferocity and rather worried, but she pressed on until she had squeezed every last drop of information out of him.

The woman had been "Hibari-sensei", the Sasuke-lookalike had been "Sai-kun", Naruto-san had told that he was "kind of tied up with his new super-secret mission" and the rather fetching woman called Hibari had seemed pained at this comment. Naruto-san had seemed healthy and happy as far as Teuchi-san could say. Sakura also got good description of both Hibari and Sai. Sakura made the ramen chef swear to tell her if he saw Nato again and then they left, after paying their bill hastily.

"I don't like this. Why wouldn-n't Naruto kun come meet us if he was in Konoha? He is always so-so considerate to his friends," Hinata asked, taking Sakura's hand, silently asking for support. Sakura nodded and looked her into those big, mist-pale eyes so intently she almost walked into a streetlamp and only Hinata-chan's quick pull saved her from embarrassing herself with her lacking situation awareness.

"More than that, who is that Sai? The woman could just be some jōnin we haven't met yet, but I know all boys our age bracket and there is no Sai, Sasuke-looking or otherwise."

* * *

Sasuke was being remarkably unhelpful, though this time it wasn't on purpose. Hyūga Hinata had told them Naruto's address and the four of them had elected Sasuke to be the one to sweet talk information out of Naruto's landlady, due to her being a middle-aged widow whose motherly heart would surely melt at the sight of poor, orphaned, valiant Uchiha Sasuke.

Sadly Nitta Akari had left the village to take care of her sick mother who lived on a small farm some miles outside the Konoha Forest's borders and Sasuke was directed to her older cousin Nitta Akane who had promised to take care of the apartment building for her. And Nitta Akane turned out to be one of those small-minded individuals who clung to their antipathy of Naruto by teeth and nail.

She had also been all too happy to invite him to tea. To commiserate about "that Uzumaki." The tea was very good, but not worth this.

"Don't you ever think how unfair it is. The fact that you – Uchiha – are in the same team with _Uzumaki Naruto_?" She pronounced his name so it sounded remarkably like monster. Her voice was quick, clipped, as if she expected Naruto to suddenly jump up from behind Nitta Akari's kitchen counter, go nuts and dye all her home textiles orange. Because, Sasuke thought venomously, that was worst Naruto-san would ever do to these idiots. All things considered it was wonder Naruto-san hadn't been the one to bolt.

"I have never thought about it," he said with cold, sharp voice and looked the greying woman into her dust-brown eyes with his Sharingan active. She was forced to look away, but she still didn't get a clue, but raised an eyebrow, obviously sceptical.

"How can you not think about it? What if he does something _terrible_?" her voice squaked, making Sasuke grit his teeth. One more attempt and after he would conclude that the hag knew nothing and just leave, saving his sanity.

"Naruto-san is a loyal shinobi of Konoha," he allowed the room temperature drop a few more degrees. "The worst that can happen is that you get into an argument with him. You just don't argue with Naruto-san: it is painful, and you can't win."

It should be noted that as a shinobi Sasuke differentiated between getting into an argument, over whether they would eat sushi or ramen for example, or about the benefits of _not _defecting, and a fight which he would obviously win, and that with painful he had meant pain of the headache variety. Of course an argument could involve fighting, but that was different fighting because as much as it pained Sasuke to admit it that was how you showed that you cared. And he cared. A little. As long as Naruto-san wasn't being painfully obnoxious. Actually, it was easiest to care for him when he was conveniently out of the way of caring. Which in no way meant he wasn't going to kick that idiot's ass for worrying them so much.

Nitta-san was a civilian, however. Sasuke noticed that her hands were trembling bad enough her spoon clinked against her teacup incessantly. It was annoying.

"Is he really that dangerous?" she whispered and chewed on her lips. Sasuke frowned.

"Only if you truly anger him," he concluded reluctantly. He could see the red aura around his teammate, feel the crackling against his skin when Naruto hit him, the shifting of water under their feet… Illogical as it was it seemed Naruto leveled up, almost like he could with his Curse Seal. Like it wasn't even Naruto's power… By instinct alone he caught the end of Nitta-san's next question, something about _with Naruto. _Why did he come back with Naruto, maybe?

"Use of force was involved. And rope," he admitted gruffly. Naruto had tied him up and it had taken two miles and lots of shouting before he had been trusted to walk on his own.

Since the question had been what it was like to be in the same team with Naruto this had the unfortunate result of Nitta-san squeaking in terror, her sympathy outweighed by her imagination suddenly lunging head first into the gutter, and she ran off from the room that was for now hers. Sasuke blinked as she left, not realizing that he'd probably just scarred her for life.

All in a day's work for one Uchiha Sasuke. This might have had ramifications for Naruto's newly redeemed estimation in the eyes of the villagers, but luckily for him Nitta Akane sought courage from a sake jar before going to her friends. Even more luckily she was a lightweight when it came to holding her liquor and so what people gleamed from her slurring, disjointed explanation was that Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto were in a relationship and practiced bondage

This had entirely different set of ramifications of course, but that's a different tale.

* * *

Umino Iruka was a chûnin and he would stay so the rest of his life, but it wasn't for lack of talent. The truth was that Iruka loved teaching and having jōnin teacher at the Academy would be waste of resources so he simply never applied for jōnin evaluation and since he stayed in the village field promotion was highly unlikely.

But he was a highly skilled ninja: he was responsible for the safety of his students and there had been many heirs to their clans and those who bore a Kekkei Genkai, prime targets for abduction. He had spoiled many attempts, five of them single-handed. He was also notoriously difficult to lie to, his only major failing having been his colleague Mizuki. And he was certain that Kakashi-san was lying to him when he claimed that Naruto had been taken off the village by Jiraiya-sama.

The fact that his teammates hadn't known where he was only proved him right. First Haruno-san had appeared to ask about Naruto and Hyūga-san right on her heels.

Iruka was also quite strong-willed. There were always overbearing parents, mostly those who held high position in their respective clans, who attempted to push their children to graduate before they were ready and it took a _lot _of will power to look the head of the Hyūga clan and say that no, Hinata-san wasn't going to graduate early, never mind what her father thought was _proper_ of the poor heiress.

The Sandaime Hokage had to know where Naruto was. And come hell or high water, Iruka was going to get the truth out of the man.

* * *

At times the simplest answer is the hardest to find. It wasn't like there had been lack of clues when it came to the mystery that was Naruto and what his performance thus far told of his observation skills Neji found highly embarrassing.

In the end he was the one who put the pieces together and came up with the truth, awesome, terrible, logical answer.

"I have wondered who the Uzumaki family are? I know nothing of Naruto-san's origins," he had asked from Hiashi-sama. Behind the man's back was a delicate, exceptional inkpainting of bamboos and a crane walking among them, and beside it calligraphy so beautiful it took his breath away. Those two pieces had been made by Neji's father and this gave him the courage.

But Hiashi-sama had dropped his brush, leaving a glaring stain on his neat report, and glared at Neji. Few could glare as well as he.

"Uzumaki-san has no family," he had said and ordered Neji to leave. And Neji had, but he hadn't left it at that, but sneaked into Umino Iruka's office and sneaked a peak into his records.

He hadn't intended to sneak, but the teacher wasn't there and the chance had been too good to pass. Shinobi were supposed to be sneaky anyway, he told himself. Besides he owed Naruto-san a huge debt and he was reminded of it every time he looked shy, kind, sisterly Hinata-hime into the eyes, her loving, so painfully happy to be friends agai eyes, and he was going to pay it back even if it took the rest of his life, starting now.

Those files yielded no information on Naruto-san's parents, but his birth date was in his map. Naruto-san's birthday, they had found out from the records, was the exact same day of Kyūbi's attack and that led his thought to circle a strange string of coincidences. The unexplained, undeserved hatred that almost all adults had displayed towards Naruto-san, which had only recently dwindled until only few stubbornly clung to their obnoxious disdain, while many looked rather sheepish and even guilty when Naruto-san's name was mentioned. How Naruto-san had shouted at the top of his lungs that he knew what Neji felt, knew what it was like to have your life screwed by a seal. His fast friendship with Gaara-san despite the fact that he had attacked Konoha and threatened Naruto-san's precious teammates.

Last but not the least: Gamabunta taking the form of a nine-tailed fox. Neji's heart had almost stopped from fright, until he had realised he saw through the fox to the toad within.

"Kitsune tsuki," Neji whispered. Fox lunacy, an old term for a possession by a fox from the old folk tales. "Jinchūriki."

It was day number fifteen.


	7. Day 15, afternoon: Pray your gods

**Day 15****, afternoon: Pray your gods (for you are going to need it)**

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

* * *

Very few shinobi were religious, for the simple reason that most religions have orders like "don't kill" and for a shinobi that is impossibility. The kind of bad Karma that killing and killing and killing some more is most of them avoid thinking about for the sake of their peace of mind: nobody wants to think that they might be born a tapeworm in their next life. But again, Naruto was a special case. Due to his reputation as "that damned demon fox" Naruto hadn't been welcome in the usual Buddhist or Shinto temples during his formative years. Little Naruto, being Naruto, hadn't let this deflate himself, but been driven to the more exotic faiths.

"What are you doing?" Sai asked from Naruto-kun who was on his knees in front of a black, oval-shaped stone. It was covered in flowers so he had thought it was some kind of flower arranging tool, only wondering where Naruto-kun got those flowers.

"I'm praying this will go well. We are gonna need it," answered Naruto-kun sagely.

An old shinobi who had originally come from a western land behind the sea and who hadn't much cared about Naruto's tenant had introduced him to a deva called Shiva who was the creator, preserver, destroyer, revealer and concealer of all that is, so a pretty major god in Naruto's opinion. For Shiva he performed ablution flower-worship and food-offerings in his small home altar. In the Land of Snow he had been introduced to Hash-Inau-uk Kamui, the kamui of the hunt. She protected hunters and guided them to game. This very old goddess of the Snow people's Ainu forefathers had seemed like a very nice deity to him and since the ninja were kind of hunters he figured she would take care of him. The Ainu didn't believe in rebirth so that took care of that problem.

He was supposed to offer a portion of his catch to her, but since offering human body parts would have been really gross and kind of villainous he had decided to give her part of his mission payments.

And then there was Ramen, but That was in a whole class of Its own.

"Why? What kind of troubles are you anticipating?" Sai asked, looking oddly at Naruto-kun. Might he have found out what Danzō-san was planning for him?

"Something always happens. Our first C-rank was supposed to be guarding Tazuna-baka from bandits, but we got Zabusa and Haku-kun and then Sasuke-kun almost died. Then there was the Chûnin Exams and Orochimaru. And when we went to the Land of Snow to protect film makers the lead actress was secretly a princess and we toppled a tyrannical regime. But I got a really cool goddess out of it!" Naruto started affronted, but ended up babbling cheerfully.

So much like Naruto, Sai thought. Some people returned from mission with the hitai-ite of their vanquished enemies, some brought back expensive weapons or jutsu scrolls, Naruto-kun came back with a new goddess. There was strange glow within his chest and Sai wondered if this was what fondness felt like. It might even be amused fondness, though Sai wasn't sure how that felt different from the basic version. More research was needed.

"Are you packed yet?" he asked. Naruto-kun nodded and pointed at his pack and something squarish and about the size of his head, or maybe there were many somethings, wrapped in kill-me-orange cloth

"Mission rations, check. Chance of clothes, check, bedroll and blankets, check. Kunai, shuriken and ninja wire, check…" The checking list went on and on, ending with: "Seventy packets of emergency instant ramen, check."

Sai thought he really shouldn't feel so befuddled anymore, he knew how much Naruto-kun loved his ramen, but what in Kami-sama's name was _emergency_ ramen? Never mind, maybe it was better to not know.

"I don't think it pays to take it with you. We won't be allowed to light a fire so you can't cook it," he pointed out sensibly. All colour drained from Naruto-kun's face at his words and his kohai turned his eyes heavenward, though instead of blue sky there was only dull grey concrete to plead with.

"I have offended my gods," he announced desolately, then glaring angrily at the small, black stone.

"What have I done to deserve this? Do you hate me?" Now Naruto-kun was fairly wailing and wringing his hands, his glare switching in a heartbeat into the most pathetic puppy-dog eyes Sai had ever seen, wet and anxious and a little hopeful.

"Maybe you should stop yelling at, uh, them?" Sai was pretty sure Naruto-kun had used plural; gods. "Then they might hate you less," he prompted practically. He didn't know what deities Naruto-kun worshipped and what might or might not offend them, but not yelling at your gods had to work at least little, right? Then again, these were deities Naruto-kun had decided to follow, so there was no telling.

"I'm taking the ramen anyway. I'll just seal it into a scroll, I'm sure that Fu-chan has a kitchen," Naruto proclaimed, inexplicably happier again. A thought fluttered through Sai's head, how trying to keep track of Naruto-kun's mood swings was a bit like a carousel gone crazy, but it was chased away by odd, heavy feeling in his chest, like some illness of heart. Maybe it was sorrow, except it felt lazier somehow. Melancholy maybe? There was no way even Naruto could make it possible for them to sit together in Fū-san's kitchen, eating ramen.

"Naruto-kun," he began hesitantly, not at all sure what he was going to say.

His world was sensible and harsh black and white, or it had been before Naruto-kun. And nothing about Uzumaki Naruto was harshly defined. He was so open; not black and white at all, not even those elusive shades of grey that Danzō-san had warned him of, but every shade of rainbow, a new blinding shade of colourful life for every day of the week and two for sundays. And Sai liked it, because when Naruto-kun was around, he could see the color in everything, too. He didn't want to be the one to douse Naruto-kun's rose-coloured lenses.

"You can drop the -kun, you know, Sai?" Naruto-kun – Naruto? – said.

"I can, Naruto?" Sai didn't like the way his voice was hesitant, frowned upon the show of emotion by sheer habit alone, but if Naruto-kun noticed he didn't comment on it.

"Sure, it's bothersome to add the –kun all the time. Ack, I'm turning into Shikamaru! Save me!" he demanded, taking a lot more space than someone so relatively small should have been capable. Save him how? From what exactly? What was the essence of being a Shikamaru? Naruto gave him a friendly shove that almost made him fall flat on his face and so they were even better friends, even before he had had the smallest chance of figuring out the Shikamaru rescue.

Naruto sealed the ramen rations into a scroll with little difficulty and Sai was reminded of the stories of him summoning Gamabunta. It seemed like Jiraiya-sama had taught Naruto-kun… Naruto more than just that and that made little cogs turn in Sai's head. The man was known to be flighty, but if it wasn't just one whimsical lesson, if Naruto had really been taken as Jiraiya-sama's student and he was still here, might it be? Maybe it was a really, really good thing Naruto would speak for him and Hibari-sensei if need be, just in case. And maybe Danzō-san wasn't quite the mastermind he was reputed to be, after all, because thus far recruiting Naruto had been one big mistake.

They met Fū-sempai and Tomiko-san at the entrance to the tunnel that had been carved under the Hokage Monument. Both had their masks on, Dog and Horse, and there were no expressions to read, but there was something about the way Fū-sempai was standing, the way his head was tilted just so that he might have been watching Naruto from the corner of his eye even as his head was turned towards the tunnel, that made those cogs turn in Sai's head some more. Fū-sempai's and Hibari-sensei's issues, matching like a lock and a key matched…

Sai had been raised and trained from practically infancy to take advantage and advantage he would take. The shadows hid his face and he lifted his pristine mask to his face to disguise the slight pull of a muscle. Never before had there been need to hide a smile.

And so they slipped away from Root Headquarters and Konoha without anyone being the wiser, just in time to miss the drama. Naruto was a walking one man slapstick comedy, though, so they weren't lacking in entertainment.

"It's a lamb! That's even better than a bunny!"

At least Naruto was entertained, Sai though glumly. Dog-san and Horse-san might have been, but it was hard to say for sure. They weren't the type to be easily entertained.

"My codename is Ram."

"_Baaaaaaah! _Cutesy little lamb!_" _Naruto's face was red with laughter.

"…kindly shut up."

* * *

Two men stood on a top of a high, rocky hill that looked over the Hidden Village of Takigakure, though over a considerable distance, hidden from the sight of most by a small group of juniper trees and a high-level genjutsu. They both wore a black cloak adorned with red clouds, but that was where their obvious similarities ended. The beautiful, black-haired man also wore a conical straw hat with white stripes that covered his face, which the giant, blue shark man had thrown into a nearby stream a week ago. Also, there was the fact that Hoshigaki Kisame was a giant, blue shark man.

He was also, at the moment, dangerously bored.

"What about the Kyūbi?" he grumbled, eying a pebble near his foot. It was a nice pebble, rounded and heavy. Kicking it would be childish, kicking Itachi would result in a fight – maybe, it was hard to say of the ice-cold bastard – when they were supposed to avoid attention until they gut Nakamura Fū in their sights, and in any case the bastard that had sent them to that second-rate village wasn't anywhere near to be kicked.

"He waits. He is the last," Pein had said, his gaze drifting to Itachi like trying to figure out what was going through his head, then turning back at Kisame "The Ichibi will be hard to acquire until things quiet some in Sunagakure so I will send you after the Nanabi instead." It was insulting. To go from hunting the Nine-Tails to hunting the Seven-Tails was the most demeaning demotion ever! Okay, so Ichibi would have been more humiliating, but still!

There was a sudden blurry movement at the edge of Kisame's field of vision, but when he turned his head sharply it turned out to be only a duck, landing into a small pool of water behind them. That was the single saving grace of Takigakure; there was no shortage of water.

"Just a stupid, ordinary featherbrain. I wanted an ANBU," Kisame muttered, running his hand over the sheath of his sword. It wouldn't be his fault if the other side started the fight, right?

"A spot-billed duck to be precise. They are mainly grey with a paler head and neck and a black bill tipped bright yellow. The males also have a red spot at the base of the bill," Itachi corrected with bored monotone. Kisame gritted his teeth.

"I hate you," he said. The infuriating, androgynous man merely shrugged elegantly, a gesture only slightly ruined by the heavy black coat covering his shoulders. Gesturing all feminine-like all the damned time was just begging for trouble as far as Kisame was concerned.

Then he remembered something he had once heard in the Wave, something totally irrelevant at the time, as it had been before he had joined Akatsuki and met his partner. It had been that one-eyed innkeeper that Kisame only remembered because the man hadn't been perturbed the least by a huge, grab-you-by-the-eyeballs-blue man with a huge-ass sword walking into his inn. It had been the punch line of some stupid, drunken joke after ten big jars of really bad sake that he couldn't remember either, but he didremember…

"Isn't that spot called Sharingan in Wave?" Kisame asked and was rewarded by the wonderfully satisfying sight of Itachi's whole body _twitching_.

The laughter swelled deep in his stomach and burst out with bellowing roar. The laughed until he couldn't stand it any more, literally as he dropped on his knees and laughed some more.

"Duckface," he managed to wheeze between snorts. Itachi twitched again.

"I will kill you," he said with real inflection in his voice. Kisame's eyes were full of mirth much too boyish and innocent for a man like him

"Dream on, Duckface," Kisame bellowed. The corners of Itachi's mouth turned up in a way that reminded a smirk enough to be recognizable. The swirling red and black caught Kisame's attention and kept it, dragging him down through black and something that rippled like water under a red moon. He dropped like a rock to the lush green grass, only to rise roaring in rage after a few seconds.

These people are considered very dangerous among a group of people who stand a fair chance of conquering the known world despite the fact that there are only eight of them. Whether it's funny or kind of sad is up to debate.

* * *

When Sarutobi Hiruzen heard the approaching footsteps he let his forehead briefly drop to his desk and groaned out loud. Many, many years as a Kage had taught him the importance of concealing his feelings, but Hatake Kakashi was driving him up to the limits of that control.

It was made worse by the fact that he couldn't punish the man for his insubordination. Well, technically he could, but the voice in his mind that sounded very much like Minato made him hold his tongue. _I want the villagers to treat him like a hero, _the voice demanded. Little Naruto who asked with wounded eyes why everyone hated him and Sarutobi couldn't answer, genin Naruto all but jumping up and down with glee for getting into an ANBU training program, walking with his escort like a lamb to a slaughter. _Is this the best you can do for my child? Seriously? I should have let you have your way and sacrifice yourself instead._

And so Sarutobi bore all the scathing questions and incessant pleading, accusations that mirrored eerily those he came up with on his own, and the footsteps approached… And then there were more footsteps and he realized with a jolt of relief that this day's drama had been temporarily suspended; it was just a change of guard.

He couldn't think about Naruto now, it wouldn't accomplish anything. He picked the quarter-yearly Mission Office security update report back up and forced himself to wade through it a lot easier now. Four times a year he couldn't delegate this to his underlings, but now the day was so prettily cloudy, the lukewarm coffee in his cup – white with ramen bowl print, he had gotten it from Naruto whom he really shouldn't be reminded of right now – smelled so delicious and the paper was so pristine white with neat, contrasting black ink. And he could take care of it in peace, no one to distract him from his job.

A door was slammed somewhere down, then there were footsteps thundering up, up, up the stairs, shrouded by killing intent and Sarutobi lifted his face just in time to see how the seal-enforced door to his office exploded into a cloud of wooden splinters. Through this cloud marched Slug Sannin Senju Tsunade, fires of unholy rage burning around her and it took Sarutobi an ill-fated second to realize it was her chakra. Shizune-san was padding after her, begging her to calm down even as she grabbed Sarutobi from his collar and in an impressive display of power hoisted him over his desk one-handed. And behind this duo stood Kakashi-san, his one eye closed into a sunny smile, his gait languid, and Sarutobi just knew that he had been outmanoeuvred now.

"Could you please let me down now, Tsunade-san? The ANBU get very nervous when I get beaten up. They are supposed to be protecting their Hokage, you know?" he said. His voice was much calmer than he was.

"Don't you dare take that tone with me, Sarutobi Hiruzen! I came back because I figured that if Konoha had managed to breed and raise someone like Naruto-kun things had changed, but I guess that's not how things are, Professor!" she yelled and Sarutobi winced at hearing that old moniker, his mind flashing back to the old, bad days of two Great Shinobi Wars. "You owe that boy a debt, even greater than the rest of Konoha since _you _are the one Minato entrusted him to, and if you won't abort this mission _yesterday _I will punch you through the Hokage Monument, skin you alive and roll you in a barrel of salt, _castrate you_ and send you to Iwa with a red ribbon tied around your neck, not necessarily in that order!" She shook him with every threat hard enough to make his teeth clatter, her eyes burning like embers, and all Sarutobi could think was: it has been too long since she has gotten this passionate about anything.

Viper and Thrush fluttered towards them from the shadows in a way unbefitting of ANBU or any jonin, obviously wishing from the bottom of their hearts he wouldn't tell them to detain his enraged student.

"Danzo and his clique are those who cause most of these ops, who created Root in the first place," he begun to placate her and immediately cursed himself, hoping his current bodyguards had no ties to Danzo, because if this got out Naruto-kun would be as good as dead. Maybe he should have them detained by Ibiki-san just in case.

"So you decided to beat your enemy by becoming them? How Sasuke-esque route to take?" Tsunade fairly purred now, letting him to regain his footing. Her voice was sweet enough to rot through his teeth and probably also his jawbone.

"My situation is completely different," he defended, but it was a feeble argument even in his own ears. There were parallels, even though his plan was actually legal and had a good chance of working unlike the bout of Curse Seal induced idiocy that Uchiha Sasuke's defection had been.

"I could take offence on behalf of my student," Kakashi-san said with disgustingly smug voice and Sarutobi had to forcibly remind himself of how he deserved it all, really, "But I think I will rather enjoy the show. Plus, he was that stupid. Do defend your argument, Hokage-sama. Inquiring minds want to know." That traitor!

"I hope this isn't an inconvenient time. There are question I would like to make, Hokage-sama," a polite, genteel voice interrupted the scene everyone was making. Sarutobi turned his head to look Iruka-san, who had raised one eyebrow in that infuriating way he had always wanted to learn, but had only managed to wiggle both in a foolish manner.

"You are a friend of Naruto's aren't you, Umino-san?" Tsunade asked him, raising one of _her _eyebrows. How come everyone could do that except him?

"Well, yes, and very concerned right now." Iruka-san _smiled_. He smiled just the same way Hiwatari-sensei had smiled when Sarutobi had been but a wet-behind-the-ears Academy student, smiled the way that promised a nice, civilised conversation about how all practice kunai had been switched into rubber replicas, one thousand one-hand push-ups and a D-class cat-retrieval mission. Brown hair, he told himself, not red, and Hiwatari-sensei hadn't had a scar on his nose either.

"Good. You can have what's left of him once I'm through," Tsunade promised grimly.

"Tsunade-sama, please," Thrush tried, taking half a step forward.

"Don't you dare "please" me!" she snapped and flicked her finger towards the man, making him flinch.

"Tsunade-san, if you would let go of my robes…" The Sandaime Hokage attempted to defuse the situation. He was sure that distancing himself verbally from his student was only prudent now. His voice was polite, gentle and long-suffering. The position he was in was more uncomfortable than he had remembered. Tsunade only gripped them tighter until her knuckles were as white as the cloth.

"You don't get a say in this, old man. Tar. Feathers. Gelding knife. Superglue, walnut groats and two hundred rabid squirrels. Do not tempt me." A cold, violent shiver run up and down Sarutobi's spine and dropped into the bottom of his stomach like a cold rock. For all it was totally incomprehensive scenario Tsunade was disturbingly good at threatening.

"Is Tsunade-sama threatening Hokage-sama?" a girl's half awed, half horrified voice whispered from the door that had gone to the doors' Heaven. Again, everybody turned to look, this time at a group of genin, a boy and a girl, followed by a boy and a girl in even pairs. Somber and proper black and blue and pale, earthly ash stood beside a blinding smudge of princess pink.

"Ah, Sasuke-kun, Sakura-chan and friends. How can we help you?" Kakashi-san asked with the air of someone who was immensely enjoying himself. For once he wasn't even bothering with the pretence of being distracted by porn.

"Some teacher you are!" Sakura-san accused, pointing at him, red spots blooming on her cheeks. Kakashi-san assumed hurt if bemused expression.

"When exactly, were you going to tell us that Naruto is a Jinchuriki?" Sasuke san asked and a heavy silence dropped on them, engulfed them, swallowed all words. Tsunade's breathing was tempest-loud in Sarutobi's ears.

"Who told you this?" he asked, thought racing. With as much dignity as he could muster, still being manhandled by Tsunade and watching them keenly. Four pairs of angry eyes, even though the white pairs were more subdued. Sakura-san was gripping her shirt in her hands, Hinata-san was holding her hands on her hips and looking strangely assertive. None of them looked repulsed and he prayed that they had had the good sense to not reveal their findings to anyone.

"We didn't need anyone to tell us, Hokage-sama. Naruto-san's condition has to be the worst protected S-class secret of all times. If this is all the subtlety Konohagakure is capable of we are indeed in trouble. In fact, a regular vegetable should have found out before and that we didn't doesn't reflect well on us," Neji-san lamented, looking at him in a way that might have been reproachful had it been less embarrassed.

In truth the shinobi of Konoha had been discreet, if not friendly. It was always the civilians who were difficult to coax, who didn't understand what was at stake. Oh, Sarutobi respected the civilian population of Konoha quite a lot. He felt that if a civilian could survive in a hidden village and not blink an eye if a stampede of angry, half-dressed kunoihci run by them throwing sharp, pointy things at giggling, white-haired man or when all households were given order to use their blackout curtains out of blue and without explanation, they deserved the title of an honorary ninja. But even then, they were not that disciplined.

"So where Naruto-kun is, Hokage-sama?" Sakura-san asked and Sarutobi could have sworn she mumbled Shannaro! under her breath. His eyes took in her and her comrades, turned to Kakashi-san and Tsunade, who was now holding him so close his eyes crossed, and then to Iruka-san who was still smiling.

He briefly prayed for a second invasion, or at least a nice, psychotic S-class assassin.

* * *

Nakamura Fū of Takigakure no Sato wasn't bi-polar, though that was what it said in most of other villages' files about her. She was simply a lonely girl that had gotten into the bad habit of letting the people around her define what she was.

It should be noted that in Konoha people didn't feel any general antipathy towards the jinchūriki, or at least hadn't before Sabaku no Gaara, but specific antipathy towards the Kyūbi and anything associated with it. Fū really wasn't lucky: Nanabi no Kabutomushi had never as much as glared Takigakure wrong, but people shied away from Fū all the same. Many would switch to the other side of the road, avoid eye-contact when forced to converse with her, civilians would refuse to serve her, shinobi kept their hands near their weapons at all times. Where Naruto had decided to become the owner of the known world's brightest jumpsuit and prank people Fū had become desperately eager to please.

She had a caretaker named Nishimura Fuyumi and a private sensei named Yukimura Masayoshi. They made a mura-mura-mura combination, her sensei would often laugh. He preferred that Fū was bright and cheerful and boisterous, because that was surely a sign that her biju hadn't gotten foothold yet. Nishimura was an old-fashioned woman who had decided that since Fū was working with the handicap of being a jinchūriki she should at least behave like a proper woman; quiet and gently obedient with passive body-language and good manners, if she ever wanted to get married.

They both only wanted for her best. When she was quiet Yukimura-sensei worried, when she was cheerful Nishimura-obaasama was disappointed. Poor Fū couldn't decide which one to please.

This was one of her quiet months and it would come to an end soon enough; she couldn't bear the haunted look on Yukimura-sensei's face much longer. Fū sat down in front of the hearth in her obaasama's house and took a deep green tortoise shell, sawn and polished into pot-shaped pentagular piece, from a wooden box she had asked her sensei buy for this specific purpose. This was a costly way of divination, but it wasn't like she had much to spend her money into. It was also kind of hard to do since it required several days of purification and a week during which she hadn't just killed someone or wasn't being sent to kill someone were hard to come by.

"What will the next cycle be like? Will this be the last, or will I loose my resolve once more?" she whispered in the dim room. It was bright midday outside, but she had closed the blinders for this; maybe it was silly, but she just couldn't do divination without proper atmosphere.

Fū had learned this from an old Buddhist nun who lived near the hidden village Takigakure, a serene old woman with wrinkled face, white hair and white eyes that couldn't see that the hair of the nice, polite girl who often visited her was bright, vivid green, the mark of a biju. She had five thinly split sticks of bamboo lined up across the mouth of a red pot filled with water. Within each hollow carved into the shell was a symbol written onto a "magical line" with black ink. She took a branch of black cherry tree, mindful of the bandaged wrist that had earned her five days' vacation, burned it in a purifying fire then placed against each of the magical lines to scorch them.

Soon she could hear the first sharp crack and the first fissures appeared on the shell's upper side opposite the lines. She quickly poured cold water using the bamboo sticks onto three spots of the shell's upper surface, making the cracks stand out more clearly, and looked at them her brow soon burrowing in bewilderment.

"I'm going to be in mortal peril, but good things will come of it… a brother?" This wasn't what she had been trying to look into at all, and besides…

"That'll be the day." Things like that never happened to people like her. All she would ever get out of mortal peril was broken bones.

* * *

"You are going to recall Naruto-kun, or else."

"Or else what? It is illegal to geld your Kage, you know."

It should be noted, that Sarutobi Hiruzen was a brave man. He had fought in two Great Ninja Wars, he was knows as the God of Shinobi. If chips ever went down he would readily sacrifice his life for the best of his village.

"But, as the Head Iryo-nin of Konoha Hospital, I can override you in medical matters. I will declare you unfit for duty, make you eat hospital food until Naruto-kun comes back, make you attend therapy where you will have to keep daily diary of your innermost feelings and play with a pink, squishy ball and wear green paper gown the whole time, carry out painful rectal examinations on you, let my interns use you as a practice dummy when they first lean acupuncture, confiscate all contraband literature and the new, experimental medication just might have the unfortunate side effect of erectile dysfunction."

But no one is quite that brave.

And, in the end, Sarutobi had never been happier to loose. It should also be counted in favour of him that he yielded before Okubo Hibari walked through the demolished door carrying a pile of papers higher than her tantō was long.

* * *

Mission: Root of The Issue: abandoned. New mission: Save Jinchūriki Naruto (Or Tsunade-sama Will Make Responsible Parties Suffer Horribly) commence!

Suborn count: 2.

* * *

AN: I don't know what Fū's (ANBU- Fū) mask is, exactly, but it looks kind of a dog to me. Or a deer. If only there was a better picture of it. I will change this if someone can give me contradicting canon information.

I have received reviews which have stated that they (reviewers) are confused by my AU timeline. Thus I present you with:

Chronology of Things That Might Have Gone Another Way (But Didn't)

Chûnin Exam Siege

Before going after Gaara Naruto noticed the "forcefield" surrounding where the Sandaime Hokage had been and rushed to help. By channelling Kyūbi's chakra he managed to overload the field; it can only take so much damage before the ninja holding it up begin to suffer serious consequences and while Naruto had little finesse at that point he is a heavy hitter. After the field fell he threw himself at Orochimaru and found himself swatted away like a fly, but he had distracted the Snake Sannin in the middle of his jutsu and the ANBU proceeded to give the Hokage back-up. Since that situation was under control Naruto ran after Gaara who wasn't.

Search for Tsunade

Naruto went with Jiraiya to search for Tsunade so she could heal Lee, and everyone else still in need of course. The reason Sandaime and Jiraiya wanted her back was because the weakened Konoha needed every big name she had just then, but that was neither here nor there for Naruto. Orochimaru didn't get involved since the Hokage hadn't summoned the Shinigami and thus his arms were just fine (his ego, mood and personal medic weren't), but Naruto still managed to convince Tsunade by learning the Rasengan within the time limit she had set and by hitting her over the head and shouting how Dan and Nawaki would be ashamed if they saw her like she was, gambling and drinking her life away and neglecting her medic vows. A long, loud argument that ended in mutual crying and Tsunade giving Naruto her necklace took place. It probably helped that he wasn't trying to convince her to become the Hokage.

The Defection That Wasn't

Itachi and Kisame made their appearance and Sasuke went off the deep end. He defected and rest of Konoha Twelve was sent after him to "rescue him." His and Naruto's fight was very, very even until in a fit of inspiration Naruto summoned Gamabunta who most certainly wasn't impressed by Sasuke's Chidori. While Sasuke rather soon realized he had been within inches of becoming second Itachi he voluntarily agreed to a second suppression seal, one he couldn't remove himself, around the Curse Seal, which was taken into consideration when he was given a parole. It still took two weeks before Sasuke spoke to Naruto.

AN2: I have also been asked about Sasuke calling Naruto –san. He is trying to pretend he doesn't care, except only a little, because Naruto-_san_ is the closest he has to a best friend, but they aren't _that close. _Really.

Who does he think he is fooling? Certainly not me.


	8. Day 15, afternoon: Not impressed

**Day 15, afternoon: ****Not impressed**

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

* * *

Tsunade had firmly taken control of the Naruto retrieval operation. Plan A, which wouldn't involve any violence at all and was plan A because of that, was Okubo Hibari intercepting the squad Naruto had been sent out with and convincing them that their Danzo-sama had aborted the mission. It was simple, but that was its strength; Sai-san wouldn't protest and Horse and Dog had no reason to believe Okubo-san was lying. Plan B, in case they detected the deception, was for Hatake Kakashi to reveal himself and hand over the real orders, signed by Sandaime Hokage. Tsunade didn't for a second believe that Danzō's pet fanatics would obey, but the purpose was to play time and keep Horse and Dog distracted while Yamato-san sneaked behind them, grabbed Naruto and captured them with his willing helpers; it was hard to avoid plants in a forest.

This might be averted by Naruto taking matters to his own hand and removing himself from the situation, a scenario called circumstance B1. A lot more likely circumstance B2 was Naruto beginning to argue with his squad-come-captors which would most likely end in fight as Yamato couldn't get to him without being noticed.

It wasn't as if Naruto couldn't defend himself and he had Sai-san for back-up. Still, Horse and Dog were ANBU and therefore very dangerous, especially in hostage situations, and so Tsunade had included herself as well. Not that she would have remained behind in any case, but that was beside the point. Sarutobi-sama had protested, saying that Tsunade was needed in the hospital, but she had countered by saying that her skills would come of use when everything unavoidably went to hell in the proverbial hand basket: Akatsuki crashed their party. Scenario C was Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame crashing their party, knocked out Nakamura Fū was optional. Uchiha Sasuke couldn't be included since there was no way in Heaven or Hell that Tsunade was trusting him in the country his brothers had been sighted at if she could help it, Haruno Sakura couldn't be included since that would have been playing favourites and it wasn't like she had anything to contribute to the mission.

Hyūga Neji was included since his Byakugan should come useful when searching for the Root squad and he could be counted on to get Naruto and run if (when) Akatsuki got involved, also to drag Naruto away by force since he didn't have the sense of self preservation the kami gave to a lemming on drugs.

"The squad Naruto was sent out with has gained a good head start, but they have no reason to run all the way to Takigakure; we should be able to catch up with them before anything too permanent happens to anyone," Tsunade said. "Any questions?"

Neji shook his head absentmindedly, concentrating on something else entirely. He had his Byakugan activated and so he could see Uchiha-san, Haruno-san and his cousin huddling together just outside the Hokage Tower, having a conversation that appeared to be whispered, but spiced with wild, angry gesturing, at least on Haruno-san's part. Uchiha-san was still, but his face spoke whole volumes for once, and Hinata-sama looked nervous; she was fiddling her thumbs in a painfully familiar manner.

Surely they couldn't mean to go out on their own? Uchiha-san wasn't an epitome of good sense, but he was still on parole. Surely even he would understand how leaving the village unauthorized would be dealt with? Surely Hinata-sama could speak some sense into Naruto-san's less than disciplinedteammates.

Neji wasgoing to speak his mind to Tsunade-sama, but then a group of ANBU marching towards the Tower caught his attention. People walking in the streets stopped to stare after them, merchants' charts came to a screeching halt and the trio at the root of the tower turned to stare. Between tall, imposing figures in green vests, their faces hidden behind white porcelain painted to resemble rooster, monkey, dog and hare walked councilman Danzō. His clothes were torn and bloody, his hands were tied behind his back, he was blindfolded and led roughly by the one with rooster mask. Also, Rooster's body language was looking mightily angry now that Neji paid attention to it.

Ans when he looked his cousin and Naruto-san's teammates were gone, and it was time for them to go also. The three of them couldn't be stupid enough to leave Konoha, and however angry Uchiha-san and Haruno-san might be at Danzō-san surely they couldn't do anything too idiotic _in_ Konoha either.

Pretty much every culture has a proverb or two about the negative consequences of making assumptions. That is for a reason.

* * *

Hi no Kuni was a land of striking scenic beauty and the forest surrounding Konohagakure no Sato was remarkable even by those standards. The dense forest hid lovely gems: rugged peaks, snow-fed lakes so clear you could see all the way to the golden sand at the bottom even in the middle of the lake and so cold swimming in those would have been night suicidal, turbulent rivers, rocky gorges and even small waterfalls. No one ever got to see this except the ninja since it was an area under Konoha military law, trespassing disallowed, regularly patrolled and just generally forbidden. All that regular travellers ever saw of Konoha Forest were the winding, confusing roads where the courier nin firmly escorted them, making sure no one took unauthorized side trips.

Of course there were areas that were forbidden for entirely different reason, the closest to Konoha being Forty-fourth Training Ground, also called Forbidden Forest. (Just because someone is a kick-ass shinobi who makes his own hidden village doesn't mean they are good at naming things.) From the outside those areas looked like your typical, run-of-the-mill forest, the insides were an entirely different story. In those places the forest was so thick that even in high noon it wasn't hard to find places completely surrounded by darkness. Those spots were inhabited by giant, venomous centipedes with ugly, pinkish-red, blotted bodies, giant, venomous snakes and pretty much giant, venomous everything. Naruto and his ANBU comrades were now running over one of those pretty, snowy cold lakes. They were running quickly, thanks to Naruto keeping break-neck pace. He wasn't one of those temperature-is-a-matter-of-discipline type of shinobi, he was only wearing his military issue sandals and the surface of the lake was freezing.

Since it was also one of those dangerous spots there were venomous, giant leeches that would chase them and try to both suck them dry and poison them. That was the other reason they were running.

"If my toes turn black and fall off its all your fault," he grumbled to his comrades who had all summarily refused to walk around the lake since that would have been taking an unnecessary detour and the Root didn't take those. The Root had great discipline and very cold feet. "And damn those overachievers!" But that wasn't directed at Sai, Tomiko-chan and Fū-san, but at the leeches who made yet another attack, making the water break in the sun. Naruto dodged and distracted them with a Kage Bunshin.

"What's the difference between poisonous and venomous anyway? Why are there two words for the same thing?" he asked, not from anyone particular.

"If it bites you it's venomous, if you bite it it's poisonous," Sai was the one to answer. And they reached the shore and a part of the forest that at least looked like it hosted nothing more dangerous than some boars.

They didn't stop running. That can happen to shinobi at times; they are just so used to the physical exertion that it comes as easily as walking to them. For Naruto it was even more; it was natural like breathing. The one, blessedly harmless flaw of Yondaime's seal, the constant bleeding of the Kyūbi no Yōko's chakra into his system, made Naruto bounce and shout, attack every obstacle with gusto and generally pest hapless, stuffy, elders and keep running since the brain synapses that would have told normal person to stop because it drained them and killed their legs had been fried years ago. Naruto was a live example of the law of inertia by Rikudō Sennin; an object that is in motion will not stop its motion until some other force stops it, and in his case friction wasn't going to cut it. Naruto ran, his comrades ran since they didn't really have any reason to stop and unknown to them Rescue Team Tsunade ran after them, but didn't gain any.

It was a good day to run too; the weather was great and the sunlight that filtered through the thick, green leaves warm. They ran through woodland where the trunks of the trees were swarming with gold beetles. Naruto didn't know if gold beetle was a real name or just a made-up term of his childhood, but those bustling, glittering bug rugs reminded him of his early childhood, when the orphanage hadn't yet decided they'd had all they could take. Naruto had slipped his caretakers at least once a week and sneaked into the part of village that the keepers always warned their charges from going, just because. It had been a lot less exiting than Naruto had expected, in hindsight because he hadn't understood what was supposed to be so exiting about those women with their faces painted white and red. But he had met the Gold Beetle Man there.

The Gold Beetle Man's real name had been Aburame Hiro and he had been a retired shinobi. He had been strange-looking with his thin, long neck, sharp-angled face and huge eyes with the opaque film of cataract, dressed in shapeless coat of a colour hard to identify, but what had caught little Naruto's interest had been his pet beetles, almond-sized green and golden bugs tied into little leashes made of cotton threads.

"This reminds me of this one guy I knew when I was little. One of the few people who were nice to me back then," he told Sai. He told of how even after he had lost his colony of kikai since his chakra system couldn't take the strain anymore he had taken in the beetles since he didn't feel right without little feet skittering all over them.

"He even let me pet them since I promised to be careful to not hurt any. They would fly in circles over his head like some strange cloud. Shino-san was really surprised I wasn't freaked out by his bugs and that's why. He told me about his shinobi days and bitched about the whoopee ninja a lot. I met few of those too in Yuki no Kuni. They were playing when people got killed." Naruto twisted his mouth. Princess Koyuki was cool and deserved better nobility than that.

"What is a whoopee nin?" Sai asked. Naruto had to think about it; he had never before put it in words.

"It's the stupid, rich nobles who want to learn jutsu that makes things explode a lot. Heh, let me give you examples. Real ninja want to protect their village and precious people, or the country and daimyo. The bad ones do it for money or because they like killing. Whoopee ninja want to win bar brawls and pick up girls." And boy, had Gold Beetle Man bitched about those. He was too old to take on fighting missions and thus he was the designated victim when someone with too much money and time offered a hefty pay to learn the ninja arts – only totally basic D-rank jutsu and academy-level kunai throwing, not that the customers were told that. They thought they were kick-ass fighters after ten lessons.

"Real ninja study since early childhood, first as a group and later under more individual tutelage," Sai prompted him. Naruto couldn't see his face thanks to the too cute lamb mask, but he chose to believe that Sai was smiling under it. A real, honest smile! It would be a little small, but it was a beginning. Before Sai knew it he would be converted into Ramenism and the service of Blessed Orange!

"Whoopee ninja hire a teacher for a week at time cause they are emo teenagers and want to do cool stuff." Not that he didn't like doing cool stuff, but it was just his reason number six.

"When real ninja create new jutsu, they do so knowing the exact difference the different handseals will make," Tomiko-chan joined in.

Tomiko-chan always treated him nice, even though she subjected him and every other male in Root to eating her horrendous attempts at cooking, but her eyes and voice were always so flat. She was just the same Sai had been, except better at pretending; like some kind of zombie kunoichi going through the motions, but Naruto wouldn't have been that surprised if she had started moaning about brains.

At times he even got the feeling she wasn't really that bad in the kitchen, because it just wasn't humanly possible, but that she was being bad at something because real people were bad at something. Naruto hated it when he got hunches like that. Why did it always have to be something hurtful? Couldn't he ever get a hunch that somebody was about to have a normal life with marriage and two kids and not-nindog and a goldfish?

"Whoopee ninja change the snake into dragon since that makes the jutsu more powerful, right?" he said and Tomiko-chan actually winced. Just few weeks ago Naruto wouldn't have seen how it was that big a deal, but then Hibari-sensei had taught him the vampire jutsu, and also told him that to make that little change would turn it into heart-exploding suicide jutsu. Who would have thought?

Sai poked Fū-san – and this could quickly get really confusing, having two Fūs around – first gently and then firmly. Fū-san turned to look at him and Sai tilted his head. Now Naruto was sure that the plastic smile was on place again. Baby steps, he thought, baby steps. Apparently Sai thought something similar about the man he had been pecking like a bird, because he pointed at Naruto, having decided that even play-pretend subtlety was right out. Fū-san sighed and gave in gracefully.

"Real ninja have their weapons custom made the second they can afford it," he said. Naruto was beginning to enjoy this game.

"Whoopee ninja have daddy's credit card and lots of catalogues." He was grinning. Then he realized no one was going to see it and got frustrated. Being expressive sucked when no one could see your face. Sure, he knew the shinobi rules said something about concealing your feelings, or maybe it was to not have any, but as a barefoot Konoha native taught by Kakashi-sensei, and one who had almost killed a really nice gender confused person called Haku who had then gone and died anyway, Naruto knew it was rubbish. Real shinobi made their own nindo and Naruto's was to never be less than he was. And he was expressive, dammit. He had to take this up with Old Man Hokage, the ANBU were trying to oppress him.

And Danzō-jerk was an evil mastermind. He probably kicked puppies for a hobby and stole candy from babies.

"I have also met a few of those, though only in passing," Fū-san volunteered. He spoke slowly, almost like he wasn't sure he should be talking at all. "There are rich lordlings in Edo who alone support half the prefecture's blacksmiths and seal makers."

"Don't feel too sorry for them, Dog," Tomiko-chan – Horse-chan, he should call her that since they were all masked up – warned him. "With the allowance their rich daddies give them, they can afford it. And I know some perfectly nice blacksmiths in the capital who should only soak them for every yen they can get." And her voice wasn't so flat anymore. There was something in it, primness and a hint of something else. Naruto guessed she liked blacksmiths for some reason. Blacksmiths? He had wondered about that for quite some time…

"Have you ever thought about the colour scheme thing?" he asked Sai. Not that he was excluding Horse-chan and Dog-san, he made a point to never exclude anyone, but Sai was the one he was looking at.

"Colour scheme of what?" Sai asked him back.

"You know how the bad guys always wear black, right? And practising the dark arts is a bad thing and the light side is the good guys. Smith is the person who makes smithy things, so is being called blacksmith some kind of moralist statement?" Cause he could see how Buddhists thought that making weapons was wrong. Maybe their propaganda had infiltrated the shinobi world's unconscious. Not the kind of unconsciousness that left you lying on your back with bump in your head, but the not-conscious-level-of-thinking unconscious… Or was it subconscious?

And now everybody was looking at him. Fū-san came within a hair's breath from running into a tree and from ANBU that was something.

"Sometimes I really wonder how your mind works," Sai spoke his mind. Naruto shrugged.

"Lots of people do. My thought processes made the psych ninja cry once, in the Academy, when they were making sure we weren't going to go nuts and kill people on them if they taught us something. Or it could've been the wasabi I put in her coffee. I'm not sure."

* * *

Everything in Naruto was at violent odds with what he should have been. He was honest and open about his many bonds when shinobi should destroy their hearts, he was obvious when shinobi should be subtle, he was a honourable fighter when the shinobi had been created to do the daimyo's dirty work so their precious samurai could retain their honour, he was overwhelmingly cheerful in the face of the world's most grim profession, the service of the Shinigami, the Grim Reaper of all lives.

He was a killer with the body count of round zero, the jinchūriki of the strongest of the tailed beasts with no blood on his hands. She who was called Tomiko had a hard time trying to comprehend him.

But this was what got to her the most: he was Uzumaki and the jinchūriki of Kyūbi no Yōko. Those words had no business to be in the same language together, let alone the same sentence. It had been years since Tomiko had felt rage, the last of it burning out when Uzumaki Yūgao had changed her name into _Uzuki _Yūgao, but when she watched Uzumaki Naruto she found she could still feel indignant.

"Whoopee ninja change the snake into dragon since that makes the jutsu more powerful, right?" Naruto-san said, making her wince. She didn't like the Root, but then she didn't like anything these days and at least she had never had to deal with idiots like those.

To change the snake into dragon would turn the focus reverse or intensify a jutsu, depending from the whole. Naruto-san made Tomiko wonder about herself. She was loyal to Danzō-sama, she truly was. He was her rock in the world built on shifting sands, the one who understood the importance of protecting Konoha by any means necessary and the one true nindo. So why, when she thought of Naruto-san in Root, she thought of Danzō-sama as one of those wannabe-ninja fools changing handseals without doing their research, why did she think that if he was stupid enough to do that…

* * *

Day 15/1, suborn count 2.

Recorded by the surveillance seal: whoopee ninja bashing.

* * *

AN: Uzu**ma**ki Yūgao is in no way, shape or form canon. Unless I am a mind reader or a precog.


	9. Interlude 2: Little free time

**Interlude 2: Little free time is a dangerous thing**

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

* * *

**Two weeks ago**

Hidan was partnered with Akasuna no Sasori when the puppeteer's partner, Mori Deidara, was temporarily indisposed – Pein' policy on blowing up Akatsuki premises was that the culprits fixed what they broke. Without the aid of any jutsu; they wouldn't learn their lesson otherwise. Some didn't learn it even then, as Deidara proved again and again, and when Pein wanted an independent fūinjutsu master working for the daimyo of Tsuchi no Kuni turned into a puppet – and a spy – he gave Sasori Hidan for backup.

It turned out to be a particularly bad match, which was suprising. Sasori possessed a very down-to-earth outlook on life, rarely getting worked up over obstacles that came his way and rarely showed any extreme emotions. Hidan considered slaughter a religious calling and often took considerable pleasure in making his opponents' deaths as painful as possible, but because of this he preferred individual deaths by his hand. He wasn't that much into mechanical, soulless mass destruction.

They should have been functional partners at least, if not bosom buddies – it wasn't like anyone did _that_ in Akatsuki except Pein and Konan. Instead Hidan pissed Sasori off and Sasori egged Hidan into showing off.

"What part of 'turn Higurashi-san into a puppet' involves the complete destruction of his body and the stronghold he was staying at? Hidan-san? Sasori-san?" Pein asked, prompting both of his subordinates to stand up a little straighter, but in Hidan's case, it was more indignation than anything.

There was a pregnant pause as he eyed Sasori and the doll-boy eyed him back.

"He started it!" Hidan declared ,his finger lifting to skewer the other. Sasori took a sidestep before it connected and bowed to Pein.

"My apologies, Pein-sama. It will not happen again," he kissed up. Hidan sneered at him; unlike the other pansies he didn't respect their leader any – despite acknowledging his power – and wasn't above occasionally threatening him with gruesome death, not thinking much of his sanity. Obtaining a filthy lot of money, then driving all the Hidden Villages into backrupt by taking missions below usual costs and getting everybody dependent on them and the biju, then turning on everyone and conquering the world wasn't a bad plan, but doing this for world peace?

Hidan fuckin hated nutcases, but he hated hypocrites more and Pein was both.

"We could just kill the daimyo. It's not like he won't wind up dead down the road anyway," he proposed.

It was times like this that being the leader of a bunch of psychotic, absurdly powerful ninja that didn't want world peace had its downsides. Hidan didn't envy him any.

"Sasori-san, inform Deidara-san that he is released from punishment duty. Hidan-san, take over the rebuilding of the north-east wing. With. No. Jutsu." Pein's voice was actually shaking. Hidan smirked. And he remembered.

_"Flee! Flee before the scourge of Janshin-sama!" he had roared, his triple-bladed scythe flashing through the ranks of cookie-cutter ninja swarming him with great, crimson swipes. He absorbed their ninjutsu with a smirk. He slashed through their taijutsu with his scythe. They tried genjutsu and he laughed to their faces, calling on the power of his most glorious god __with his sinful heart, and his skin turned black and bone white. The greatest thrill: to maim and kill!_

_Sasori charged in beside him with his human puppets, living corpse puppets, delicious, disgusting defilement of life and death. Then the explosions began._

Hidan's eyes actually misted from sheer bliss as he recalled the explosions. Ah, the glorious blood-crimson and pale yellow and death-white explosions that destroyed the stronghold and a quarter mile of landscape around it. He had salted the ground that still smelt like charred flesh and bones for good measure.

"I regret nothing."

**Seven days ago**

Hidan regretted not having killed that bastard nitfucking Pein. He had fixed the holes on the roof – there had been more holes than roof left – and gotten his hands, hair and robes black with tar. Some of it was still caked under his fingernails after three days and the subtle smell lingering around him was making him go nuts. He had repaired the doors, window casings and windows and now it was time to make cabinets to replace the ones Deidara's bout of idiocy had blown into tooth picks. He'd had enough.

He stormed the cabinet that passed for their mission office and started going through on-going missions. What caught his eye was the manila folder identified with red shu, yellow nan and green number seven; Uchiha Itachi, Hoshigaki Kisame and the jinchūriki of Nanabi no Kabutomushi. He leafed through it and an angelic smile lit his face up.

She was the third strongest by tail count and seemed to have decent training. She could probably give him a proper work-out and even if she didn't, fighting Itachi and Kisame for having stolen their thunder was bound to rid him of his frustration and the persistent sensory memory of the smell of tar and sawdust. He gritted his teeth and caressed the handle of his scythe, then grimaced apologetically. All that menial work had given him calluses! Not the kind of calluses handling weapons would give a person, but the calluses of someone wielding a hammer and those who were unworthy of touching his weapon.

"Great Janshin-sama, once the world has been conquered, I swear to give all those who practise the vile art of carpentry to you as an offering!" he declared, not really thinking about how he would have to do his own carpentry from then on. Villains tend to drop the ball like that at times.

Maybe he would take a short detour through the nearby mountain? Some buddhist hermits lived up there and they would make nice starters. To get himself into the proper spirit of things.

**Six days ago**

Naruto had stripped down to his pants and was resting on all fours, forehead and forearms flat against the sweat-damp red tatami. Hibari-sensei had moved like she had no spine when she had showed this exercise to him, but it was a lot more difficult in practice. Maybe it was because he actually had a real bone spine and not some strange ANBU supernin gelatine back? He took a deep breath and aligned his shoulders, relaxed his hands and shifted his hips. Balance, he told himself, you can keep it. Believe it! He stretched first his right and then his left leg back and up. He exhaled and steadied himself, the vertical line of his body taut, toes now pointing up towards the roof that his last attempt at C-class wind jutsu had scraped all the plaster from the day before.

Even his hard shoulder muscles bunched, but Naruto gritten his teeth, concentrated fiercely and bent his legs , tipping forward, spine bowing. Beside him Sai was holding his position with ease, had been holding it the last ten minutes like he had done this exercise his whole life. Hibari-sensei was standing in front of him, but all he could see of her were her hakama-clad legs. Naruto growled and curled his whole body until he felt the tap of his heels atop his head.

"Yes! Tiger Scorpion Asana! I did it!" He twisted his neck as far as he could, but still could only see Hibari-sensei's waist. "Uh, what was the point again?"

"Yoga will make you more flexible and teach you some self-discipline," Hibari-sensei said. Naruto's muscles were already aching; obviously this was one of those "for your own good" things.

"Good luck with that," he grunted. He wasn't trying to be sarcastic.

"I guess that self-awareness isn't too bad either," Hibari-sensei sighed. "And be quiet. It will be easier if you regulate your breathing better.

Not that talking made it better, but Naruto was still convinced that human spine just wasn't supposed to bend that way. But there was no way he was doing some wimpy lotus sitting when Sai was going for the most difficult position in the handbook. And later he could torture Sasuke with one more he could do and Sasuke could not! Muahahahaa!

But Sasuke, torture and evil (silent) laughter reminded him of something, not that he thought Itachi was the type to laugh.

"Do you know of any other Akatsuki members than Itachi and Kisame?" Naruto asked Hibari-sensei.

"Classified information," she said and corrected Naruto's ankles. He didn't see what the difference mattered, but whatever.

"But they are after me! Shouldn't I know so I can better protect myself?" he moaned and dropped out of the position.

Hibari-sensei didn't relent, but later that evening, when it was time to go to sleep, he lauched an attack on Sai. It took him over half an hour of wheedling though he mostly suspected that Sai gave in just so Naruto would shut up and they could both get some sleep. Naruto kind of wanted to smack himself unconscious by the time Sai relented – the bedcovers were so warm and he was tired – but if he didn't insist, he would never find out anything important.

"I only know of one and I'm not supposed to, so don't tell anyone. His name is Hidan, I don't know his family name, and he is a janshinist." Sai's eyes glittered gloomly in the dim light that filtered in from under the door.

"What's Janshin?" Naruto asked.

"He is an evil god." Sai turned his back to Naruto to signal the end of conversation.

"What kind of idiot goes out of his way to make themselves a walking chiche? I mean, evil god?" But he let it go to avoid being murdered in his sleep.

The evil god Janshin followed Naruto into his dreams, in the form of a bizarre, maniacally cackling giant bunny that had lots of tails, but it was hard to say how many since they all resembled one, giant fluffball. It burned down a lot of stuff until Gaara appeared out of nowhere and gave it a desert funeral. After that it became an undead zombie god and two men carrying a piano entered the dream. After that, Naruto dreamed of ramen and nothing else for the rest of the night. Everybody sees bizarre dreams every once in a while and mostly nothing comes of it, except some very strange looks when the dreamers try to recite them to their friends.

But now, Naruto's mind had firmly connected Janshin and evil bunnies.

Ouch.

* * *

AN: I have acquired a beta! Many thanks to foreverdoomed. ^_^

AN2: I'm sorry for the long wait. ^_^;;


	10. Days 1516: Damsel in this dress, part 1

**Days 15-****16: Damsel in this dress, part 1**

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

* * *

It wasn't that Uchiha Sasuke didn't understand why he wasn't included in rescuing his teammate. He just didn't like it; he and Sakura-san were Naruto-baka's teammates, dammit! Had he known of Itachi, he would have liked it even less; most likely to the point where he would have up and left, consequences be damned, and Sakura would have left with him. As it was, he got distracted by his flair for vengeance.

It begun when he saw the ANBU walking councilman Danzō by them, not paying the slightest bit of attention to three genin as they led the traitorous man into the Tower, supposedly to be interrogated by the Hokage before being turned over for the Interrogation Department. Sasuke remembered Ibiki-san, and had it been someone else, he might have acknowledged how undesirable the man's situation was, if not actually pitied him. But now all he felt was fury that the man had gotten off _easy_.

Sasuke wasn't a Naruto kind of shinobi. His view of the world was much dimmer, his opinion of people much lower and he was very apt at reading between lines what (the adults) his superiors would have preferred he didn't. Fact one: Danzō-san had forced Naruto-san into an illegal branch of ANBU, no doubt planning on using the jinhchūriki to further his traitorous goals. Fact two: there was no way Naruto-san would have taken that lying down – the idiot didn't understand the concept of lying to save his skin. Fact three: now Naruto was somewhere unspecified and Senju Tsunade herself was included in the rescue team. Conclusion: Naruto was fucked… Naruto-san! Naruto-san was fucked and now the Hokage had the gall to forbid Sasuke from joining the rescue. Additional fact: the only reason Danzō-san had gotten his slimy paws on Naruto-san was because the Hokage had allowed him to, in order to use Naruto as a spy. Naruto, a spy! A spy in an organization led by someone as ruthless as Danzō! Sasuke wasn't only mad, he was enraged beyond anything he had ever felt if Itachi didn't count and the one he intended to take his feeling out on was marching right past him.

Naruto-san had sort of become Sasuke's best friend almost by default, or as close to a best friend Sasuke could ever allow himself to have with those red pinwheel eyes of his brother forever haunting the edges of his consciousness. He wasn't in the mood to be obedient.

"Come with me now," he hissed and grabbed both Sakura-san and Hinata-san by wrist, dragging them away from the tower and calculating a distance that was far enough to not be seen as loitering around, but still within Hinata-san's Byakugan's range. A sudden motion caught his eye, but it was only an empty paper bag the wind carried.

"Y-you aren't going to do anything in-inadvisable, are you?" Hinata-san whispered like one who knew the answer already.

"You are still on parole, don't mess it up!" Sakura-san hissed at him fiercely. Sasuke glared at them. He had learned to glare people into submission at early age.

"That idiot Naruto has gotten over his head and Danzō-san is at fault. We are going to have a conversation." Hinata-san gave in first, as expected. Sasuke wasn't blind; he knew she had it bad for Naruto, as bad as Sakura-san for him. Of course, Hinata-san was a lot less annoying about her feelings.

"You are going to have a conversation with who? What has this got to do with Naruto-kun, and what are you getting my teammate into?" The bark of a puppy accompanied the words.

Now there were heirs to three clans and one self-declared bride of one of them. Konoha nights were like Konoha days; more often than not full of politic intrigue, in a lot of good ways and bad too. At times it was even completely accidental.

* * *

Takigakure wasn't an easy place to sneak into. Despite what its name suggested it wasn't particularly hidden in the middle of the plains of Taki no Kuni, but being surrounded by endless, hopelessly flat fields of rice and wheat made sneaking in while trying to stay hidden a bitch of a job. True, there was a small forest near the village and some peaks, not to mention the waterfall the village had been named after and the giant tree in the middle of it, but to get to that cover, one had to sneak through the surrounding landscape. Landscape that was very well patrolled and full of small outposts.

"I have a better plan," Naruto said, giving the wet rice fields a hairy eyeball. It was very idyllic-looking, painted deep red by the setting sun, but crawling through knee-deep water all night long and sleeping in muddy bank sounded plain stupid. It was going to be cold, wet, dirty, wet, slow, wet and just what would Fū-chan think if she saw them covered in mud from head to toe?

"What is it?" Fū-san asked. Naruto liked this about ANBU: they always listened. They didn't always think his ideas were so great, like when he had proposed they have an office party – he had already made the hot cocoa and gotten the ramen too – but they listened first. They always remembered that even though they couldn't think of a better plan, someone else might.

"We go in as clients. We are going to have to travel through the Ta no Kuni and there are all those freak missing ninja running around free, so we are gonna need the protection," he improvised. Heh, they got to blame it all on Orochimaru! That always made Naruto's day.

"The idea has some merit, but they would see our faces," Fū-san mused, stroking the handle of his sword. "And we would have to leave most of our weapons behind."

True, Naruto hadn't thought that far, he had just wanted to avoid crawling his way to Takigakure, but now he was on a roll. But he met the weaknesses in his plans the same way he met other obstacles: not retreating, not choosing another route, but finding a way to push through.

"That's easy enough. You guys are ANBU, so you learn new jutsu quick, right? Just look at this!" And with a single handseal – ram – he was covered with white smoke. And when it evaporated…

This was what Naruto had termed as his Hyūga variation of the technique since he had modelled it after them, minus the eyes, and because it was the classy one and Hinata-chan was classy. He was about as tall as he always was but a lot more slender, with long, dark brown hair and brown eyes and dressed in simple orange travelling kimono and a funny, pointy straw hat. His skin was pale and there were no possession-marks on his cheeks. He looked, in short, like any of Hinata's cousins if not for his eyes. Oh, and he had breasts of course. Sai wasn't surprised since he had seen enough of random genderbending already, but Tomiko-chan frowned. She first cupped Naruto's right breast, making him blush and stutter, and then placed her hand on Naruto's shoulder.

"Why am I always plagued by perverts?" Naruto moaned. Tomiko-chan snorted.

"Kai," she tried to release the genjutsu. Nothing happened and Naruto looked at her oddly.

"Most genjutsu can be broken with that. Most henge doesn't pass the touch test either," she explained her actions and knitted her brows. "That's not a simple genjutsu." It wasn't a question.

"Well, I was really bad at henge because it used so little chakra I always broke it, but I found I could do it if I pushed the chakra through my body and spent the extra inside instead of just putting it over me." Kakashi-sensei had once said that Naruto trying to do a D-rank jutsu was a bit like trying to fill a glass from a dam hatch; it didn't matter how careful you were with the glass, unless you did something about the water pressure, it broke. And, well, his control had gotten better in the Root thanks to Hibari-sensei's tablets, but it still wasn't anything to write home about.

"Firefly, that sounds more like a ninjutsu," Sai said slowly and Naruto realized he had never explained to him how he did it before. Yeah, he knew that using ninjutsu to change the body was supposed to be incredibly dangerous and all, but it was the Academy teachers' fault, except Iruka-sensei's.

"Nobody told me henge was supposed to be genjutsu before I made this," he complained. He could almost see Sai rolling his eyes at him under the very cute, if a bit maniac-looking, lamb mask.

Hmmm, what if it was possible to see through things without the Byakugan? Gaara could see with that sand eyeball of his, but since he used pure chakra where Gaara used sand maybe he could see through it somehow…

"Firefly-kohai, please pay attention," Fū-san commanded him sharply. Naruto rubber his hair embarrassed.

"Uh, sorry, but I just got the coolest idea." And he referred it of course. Why not; they were all Konoha ninja so they were allies, and besides Sai and Tomiko-chan were friends too. Silence reigned.

"There are several Academy teachers I would like to kill for wasting a resource like you," Fū-san said eventually. Naruto was torn between being happy – his new team leader thought he was intelligent – and blustery since he _wasn't a resource! _Kami damn it.

"So. Firefly, you are Yagami Natsu, Ram, Yagami Sakaki. You are siblings, on your way to live with your husband in Ta no Kuni's capital…"

"One husband! What a dirtbag! I'm going there to geld him!" Naruto declared. Only to wilt a second later; it was scary how well Fū-san could glare through the mask. Maybe he had some secret chakra eyeball jutsu?

"Horse, you are Yagami Toshiro, their older brother who escorts them. Natsu-san, you will find a way, tonight, to apply the Oiroke no Jutsu," Fū-san said it like it tasted dirty on his tongue, "into our weapons and packs. I will be a wandering medicine seller, Masahiko Furiko, who travels the same way with you; it is a good cover for my poisons. Tomorrow we will travel as civilians." He gave Naruto a last appraising look before turning to put up their camp, reciting the details of their cover story at the same time.

Again, Naruto not knowing how things were supposed to work was working for him. If he had known that casting ninjutsu-henge, an improbability in and of itself, upon something that didn't have a chakra system of its own and wasn't part or extension of him... Well, he would still have found a way to do it, eventually. But now he just cast the domestic variation of Oiroke no Jutsu on their packs and weapons, poked Fū-san and then spent the rest of the evening teaching them how to apply and cancel it, as well as the ins and outs of ordinary Oiroke no Jutsu of course. And ANBU did learn quickly by example even when they had no idea why something was working.

Of course, being a civilian brought its own problems, as they found out the next day.

There was an infamous nest of bandits, known as Brotherhood of Lawless Assassins, less than a day's journey by shinobi means from Takigakure. One might wonder how they could have survived there for so long and reached the obvious conclusion that they were allowed for some reason. Few non-shinobi did because by normal means it would have been three days journey, at tops, with two fast horses, and most people didn't know that much about shinobi capabilities. Also, most clients didn't wonder, period. Bandits were like cockroaches: everywhere and difficult to exterminate. They were part of the scenery.

"They are Takigakure's scapegoat for illegalities they commit in the vicinity. Not a very believable one, but it doesn't matter in the game. You have to be able to prove your accusations," Fū-san instructed Naruto as they walked slowly towards a small ravine where five men were crouching, trying to stay hidden and failing miserably. Sunlight reflected from one man's gold tooth and no one had even tried to mask their chakra. Or bothered to go under the wind, or bathe first.

"What about clients? Wouldn't Taki get angry if these clowns attacked people on their way there?" Naruto asked.

"I believe they have a quota, and instructions to not attack anyone important-looking. Sooner or later they will get too cocky and then they will be replaced." Somehow Fū-san made his sandal drop and they all stopped to wait while he strapped it back on.

"... take the women... pretty brunette, gonna see how good roll... good rack..." Small bits of whispered conversation drifted towards them, accompanied by lots and lots of inventive swearing.

"Trouble ahead," Tomiko-chan sighed. Naruto evaluated the situation like Hibari-sensei had taught him to. Seven bandits, easy to beat, but they shouldn't be able to, and nowhere to hide the bodies. And bandit bodies lying around, living or not, would give them away big time.

"Hey, I have an idea!" Naruto brightened. "How about we let ourselves be captured and then Tomiko-chan brings Fū-chan to the rescue?"

"That idea is not completely without merit, but there is little chance they would send someone of her caliber to deal with small fry like these," Fū-san said, but he sounded contemplative. "Still, it might be for the best to allow ourselves be caught and then escape. We may claim they drunk themselves to dumb stupor. No one thinks highly enough of bandits to suspect that story."

"And we'll be able to teach those bastards some _good manners_," Naruto smiled grimly.

They walked on in the bright light of morning. For a moment it seemed like the bandits wouldn't attack after all, but when Naruto was walking past the one with the gold tooth the man, big, burly and ugly, leaped and grabbed his arm. The man was practically a small mountain with ham-sized biceps and very little neck. Naruto let out a feminine-sounding shriek.

Of course, his experience with feminine shrieks were mostly of Sakura-chan shrieking indignantly, soon followed by a punch, so he actually made the man step back half a step, though he didn't let go of his arm.

"Oh no, bandits! Whatever shall we do?" he tried to fix the situation, raising his left hand to his forehead dramatically, trying to look faint. Sai made a small noise that almost sounded like a snort.

This was obviously not how this had been supposed to go, but the bandits weren't about to let that stop them. Quickly they surrounded the little group completely, making threatening moves with their big knives and staffs, laughing anticipatorily. But Naruto was the only one making even half-assed attempt at looking scared and few of the unkempt faces begun to take strange, vaguely uneasy looks.

"Give us all your money and stuff and we maybe let you go," the man who was holding Naruto's arm prisoner ordered Tomiko-chan. "And women stay too." He pressed Naruto against his chest. And he made a move to grope Naruto.

When Naruto had trained with Hibari-sensei he had been surprised just how much someone held in classic hostage position - back to attacker's chest, arm around neck - could do. He'd been even more surprised to find out that even face to face a knee to the groin was an error since it left the person doing it off balance and was easily blocked by a shift of one leg or simple twist of the hips. The alternative move Hibari-sensei had taught him had the advantage of working in this back to chest position as well. He reached back between them, grabbed, pulled and twisted. Hard. The man screamed like a stuck pig and doubled over, letting go of Naruto. He turned and hit once. The man dropped like a rock.

"Help! I'm being molested!" he screamed. "Big brother Toshiro, save me from this brute!" His face – her face in this case – was pale and frightened. Said brute was out cold at his feet and couldn't have threatened a newborn kitten.

"We are gonna fuckin' make yer regret that…" one of the thugs shouted and made a move towards Naruto, as the rest growled and closed ranks around them, but Tomiko-chan grabbed the man's arm and pinned it behind his back in one, effortless move, forcing him on his knees.

"You are going to take us all hostage and bring us to your base, or else," she said. Sai cracked his knuckles and gave one of his creepier smiles.

"Or else we let Natsu-chan practice gelding with you lot," he promised with a sunny voice.

* * *

Hiro was the leader of the Brotherhood of Lawless Assassins. He could read and fancied himself an educated man. That could be blamed for the name of the Brotherhood also. His Sons weren't mere nameless thugs, no, they had class! At least Hiro thought so and no one had argued the point out loud. Hadn't he even managed to strike a deal with a real ninja village? That any single competent shinobi could have massacred them all anytime they chose to do so was something he chose to not think about much. He was the Father of the Brotherhood, and a real father to many of them.

Nobody could remember if Big Brother was the oldest of Father's children or not except maybe Father, but it didn't really matter. He hadn't gotten the moniker Big because of his age, but due to his sheer size and nobody was eager to take it away from him. He wasn't all that agile and he had never learned much technique, but that was because he had never needed to. He wasn't as stupid as he looked and he was a fighter to be reckoned with because of his monstrous strength. Anything punched by Big Brother – from wild boars to smaller buildings – stayed down for the count. He was never in a very pleasant mood and everybody left him well enough alone, most time even Father.

And so no one was surprised when Big Brother's group returned successful, even bringing three really pretty women and one other hostage with them. His looming shape darkened the room as it blocked out the afternoon sunlight from the doorway for a moment – the door had met its maker a long time ago. The prisoners walked in after him and his men after them. There was a pretty, buxom brunette with a sinful little mouth and delectable hips, one woman with inky black hair and an older, but still beautiful redhead with a medicine-seller's back pack. They didn't even look all that roughed up so they must have done the smart thing and surrendered without a fight. But there was something odd going on: why had they taken the man also? The Brotherhood wasn't big on accepting non-conventional sexual preferences.

"Good work, Big Brother," Father said. But why didn't the prisoners look scared? The brunette kind of did, except she seemed to have way too much fun being scared.

"So, this is your secret hideaway? Well, you could do worse than an inn," the redhead said with the air of one not terribly impressed. So it was a little dirty, so what? They were bandits, not maids. These women could double as maids if it bothered them so, they could even steal black miniskirts and white aprons for them.

"And first we are going to rid you of that unfortunate attitude. Maybe watching your man being tortured would do it for you?" he asked, expecting them to start begging.

The brunette kicked Big Brother and he fell down on his knees, whimpering.

"Mommy… too strong… big knife…" he mumbled with broken voice. His men, still armed and presumably dangerous, cowered in corners. There were only four corners in the bar/dining room so a small fight ensued about who had the right for the last one, One-eye Kogoro or Baby Brother.

There was general alarm while the not-prisoners spread over the floor. The ring of trembling blades and clubs and staffs was met with disdain (redhead), nothing at all (black-haired), perkiness (brunette) and amusement (the man).

"Surrender now and we may consider being merciful," Father offered with false bravado. The redhead raised a single, elegant eyebrow.

"Alas, we are alone in the den of bandits! Who can help us now?" the brunette recited excitedly.

"No need for pretense, Natsu-chan. We don't have to fear hostile eyes anymore," the black-haired said and her hand disappeared into her long sleeves. Everyone stiffened, but she only took a paper and a brush dipped in ink. Some detached part of Father's mind wondered how she had dipped it in ink in her sleeve.

"We are your prisoners for a little while. We will escape after you have drunk yourselves unconscious. Since murdering unconscious men in cold blood would make us look quite bad, we will let you live as long as you promise to confirm this story," she said and let her brush fly on the paper.

After that it hurt a lot and they ended up very unconscious indeed.

* * *

The sun had gone down and the wind was chilly. Fū-san ordered watch and Naruto took the first turn just so he would get uninterrupted sleep once he got to sleep. He created his trusty Kage Bunshin and spread them all around their small camp, sitting himself on the bank of the rice field. His muscles were aching little, but it was the good kind of ache after a day well spent. He looked far into the distance where he could only barely see the small, darker batch that was the forest near the hidden village, lost in his thoughts. He thought of Gaara and how things were for Fū-chan. He thought how it was really confusing to have two Fūs around. He thought how he really missed his team even though Sai and Hibari-sensei and Tomiko-chan and man-Fū were totally awesome too and he had learned more with them than during his entire Academy time and ninja career put together.

If Rasengan didn't count, that was, and he guessed he should credit Ero-sensei for him being able to summon Gamabunta, even if the man had only kicked him off a cliff.

"Aww, this day was fun, too," he said and leaned back. And as he tore off small patches of green grass and threw it into the water he wondered about this mission.

It hadn't seemed too strange at first; of course he would help his fellow jinhchūriki in need, but all this sneaking around was pretty funny business. Why couldn't they just up and go there openly and tell them that creepy S-class terrorists were after one of their kunoichi? Something was off here. But his musings were interrupted when Tomiko-chan walked up to him and plopped down beside him even though she should have been sleeping.

"What do you think it means to be a shinobi, Natsu-chan?" she asked him without any niceties or explanations. Naruto liked it better when she called him kohai because that meant she thought of him as a real ANBU. Technically he was still a trainee, but he had a mask and a name, as stupid as they were, and Tomiko-chan called him a junior officer.

"Shinobi protect their people and village and country. They complete their missions and make their village proud. And make a living on the side," Naruto made himself add. Even totally awesome people needed to eat and pay their rent after all. And eat yummy, yummy ramen.

"The way you say it, comrades first, mission second and self last?" Tomiko-chan asked, hugging her knees casually. Naruto hadn't ever thought of it with those terms, but it was a good way to put it so he nodded.

"Did you know that what I said is a mangled version of an ANBU tenet? Mission first, comrades second and self last is the way of the ANBU."

Naruto saw red. Not Kyūbi kind of red that sent his blood pounding in his ears and his fingers itching like there should have been claws instead of soft human fingernails, but the kind of red that happened when people insisted on being so stupid. They had gone after Hibari-sensei with blowpipes when all she had needed was someone who said it was going to be okay. Sasuke had tried to defect to Oto because he couldn't become strong in Konoha, never mind that it was where Itachi had become so strong. In Suna they had thought it was a good idea to be mean to someone as strong as Gaara, Neji had taken his pain out on Hinata-chan when she was the only one in their clan who was both really sorry, really innocent and always nice, and Haku-kun had to die before that jerk Zabuza got around to confessing he liked him. People just made their own and everybody's lives as difficult as possible and then sat around moaning how it was so inevitable.

"It doesn't take miracles to not traumatize yourself! I have…" Naruto thought of what Iruka-sensei had once said to him, of him, right after the exams but before they had gone off to protect Koyuki-hime-chan. "There are always happy people regardless of how sucky their lives have been and there are people who are miserable and make all kinds of problems for themselves regardless of how wealthy and sheltered they are. I have the greatest wealth of all because I choose to be happy." And he was proud of it.

"We who choose ninja life become tools to be used for greater purposes. Whether we are happy or not doesn't matter," Tomiko-chan said. Her voice didn't have any inflection. Naruto felt like banging his head against something hard, maybe her thick skull.

"And how it helps Konoha if you are miserable and then die of ulcer at young age? Besides, if you were caught by some foreign village and they told you to do mission for them now 'cause they caught you, would you?" Naruto couldn't imagine any of these people who were so proud of being "tools" doing docilely that.

"Of course not! I am loyal to Konoha to death and beyond!" She was whispering but it in no way diminished the intensity of her voice.

"There you go! You aren't a tool, 'cause tools work for whoever picks them up. It takes a person to be loyal." Tomiko-chan bent her head to hide her face for a second and pinched the bridge of her nose like she had a headache.

"Analogies aside, don't you think you are watching this world through rose-coloured lenses? Do you really believe there could be a happy ending for people like us?" In all her white-grey glory she reminded Naruto of someone. Someone whose heart had also been frozen and brittle.

"Of course there won't be any happy endings if people don't make them and I'm not gonna be unhappy." Hence the choosing.

"And if I said that this hypothetical thing is my past and I've moved on?" Tomiko-chan asked. She seemed curious like a cat. Actually she was staring at Naruto like he was some freak of nature, like a two-headed calf.

"I would say you haven't moved on you've simply ran away. Hypothetically," Naruto said which caused Tomiko-chan to look away for a second. But when she looked back at him her body was relaxed and like a porcelain doll's her face gave away nothing.

"You interest me. You defy the reality around you and so far it has bent to your will. I am unaware whether this is luck or a capability of yours, however." Tomiko-chan rose and so did Naruto. The way she spoke had changed, he noted. It was like she was letting him see past some barrier that had been there before. She was more formal now, but she also looked to be more at ease and emotive.

He lit up like the sun. Tomiko-chan actually took a step to the side, taken back by his reaction, but Naruto didn't care. He was the kind that learned with his body and reacted with his body, mind trailing after, and he leaped, wrapping his arms around Tomiko-chan's neck. She was a whole head taller than he was and her back didn't bend under the unexpected weight so Naruto's feet were left dangling in the air as he attempted to squeeze it all from Tomiko-chan's lungs. Friendship just didn't feel the same if you didn't make them feel it. Sai had already learned it too. He had given up fighting when Naruto gave him a noogie.

"What is this about?" Tomiko-chan hissed, pushing him back down. Koyuki, she reminded Naruto of Koyuki-hime-chan before thawing. She looked like some kind of winter goddess; her face porcelain pale, her ash pale hair fluttering in the wind, almost colourless in the dark, wearing the white cloak of the squad leader she had taken from Fū-san as soon as they had left Konoha behind to make the potential enemies concentrate on the wrong person and the disguised as kimono. She was also a very proud goddess; the tilt of her head high and offended.

"Thanks for trusting me," Naruto said. Tomiko's whole body jerked like somebody had run a lightning jutsu through it. (Ouch, he thought, remembering the chirping birds and the sound of water.)

"You are better than I thought," she muttered. "Let us make a wager, Natsu-kohai. You have this one mission to convince me that you have the power to change the world for me, so make it count."

"What do I get if I win?" he asked.

"You have one living relative in this world. If you can convince me, I will tell you who they are." And so she dangled the one thing Naruto would do almost anything for in front of his face. It was cruel of her, but she had forgotten how to not be cruel when she wanted something. She just didn't know whether she wanted to be proven right or wrong.

What she who was called Tomiko didn't know was that one day they would list Naruto's luck under special abilities in Iwa and Mizu bingo books and there would be warnings to flee rather than bet with him. Not quite as cool as flee on sight, but Naruto would feel vindicated anyway.

Tsunade had learned it already. Never wager with Uzumaki Naruto.

* * *

Day 16/2, suborn count 2.

Recorded by the surveillance seal: Root squad sneaking into allied village (Takigakure) Security Zone under pretence of civilians.

* * *

AN: Again, thanks to my wonderful beta foreverdoomed!


	11. Days 1515: Damsel in this dress part 2

**Days 15-16: Damsel in this dress, part 2**

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

* * *

One might think that the Hokage Tower would be the most secure building in the village, but… in truth not so much. It was the oldest building in the village, the fourth thing Harashima Senju had had built when Konoha had been but a military camp after the first rampart, the barracks and the hospital. It had been expanded and heightened and fortified more than once, but the bones of the building had not changed. The sewers, for example, were from time when some things couldn't have been as small as the builder might have wished. They had been built too small for an adult to crawl through, but in ninja world that amounted to very little. This flaw had been long overlooked for three reasons. One, the Tower's sewer system was separate from the rest of the village's and it was in the middle of the village so getting there wasn't a simple feat. Three, there was always something busier and bigger and more important to take care of.

What was number two? Because of the renovation done at the beginning of Sandaime's first term, those older sewers didn't lead higher than the cellar level anymore. Of course, the tower's cells were underground…

Rooster, Shinonome Junichi, had seen some utterly bizarre, off-the-wall applications of ninja skills and basic tactics in the course of his long career. A fair number of those he could attribute to two ninja in particular. Uzumaki-san was the second of them and he had now gotten Danzō into hot water and rightly so. Rooster's fingers returned to caress the handle of his kunai again and again when he stopped paying attention to them, the memory of red and then black and his taichou falling to the ground bleeding and burning… And now that man was basically helpless in a cell behind one door. One door he was guarding.

Shinonome Junichi was enraged and distracted, and while he might have seen a lot during his long career he hadn't seen this. Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura, teammates of one Uzumaki Naruto, aided by Hyūga Hinata and her teammate Inuzuka Kiba who had come along to make sure they didn't pressgang Hinata-chan into doing anything stupid, were looking around the small restroom kitchen they'd crawled into through the super-secret sewers found by Hinata-chan's incredible vision. How that had happened, Kiba still wasn't too sure of – he had been supposed to stop this after all. Sasuke-bozu was all for simply waltzing in, but their looks weren't exactly conductive to that sort of thing. Henge wouldn't work either; the ANBU guard would kai the hell out of any chakra signatures that seemed even the least bit suspicious.

And they were ANBU. The same way civilians spoke of the ninja with fearful reverence most ninja spoke of their ANBU. That reputation was carefully cultivated: a fight entered in low spirits was a fight half lost.

How could they get into councilman Danzō's cell? Kiba's eyes wandered. And why were they so insistent in getting there in the first place? And if only they had some kind of cover...

He looked over at a simple cardboard box that had once hold paper plates, the only kind the dangerous prisoners were allowed to use, while Sakura-chan poised some ideas and Sasuke-prick shot them down like the ice-cold jerk that he was. Ahem! He walked over and picked it up.

"Hey... Guys? I have a plan" He turned around, and pulled the box down over himself. Then he explained his plan. Akamaru whimpered at his feet, but Kiba ignored him.

"No wimpy defeatist comments allowed," he said.

"Kiba-san, are you crazy? How would _that_ possibly work? He is an ANBU," Sakura-chan gaped, whispered and then shook her head incredulously.

"Dobe, you've had some stupid ideas, but this?" The dobe just slipped, since Kiba was acting in a remarkable Naruto-like was at the moment. Sasuke shook his head. Kiba snorted.

"You got anything better?" he challenged the Uchiha.

The two other genin looked at each other, then at Hinata-chan who blushed and shrugged her shoulders. Kiba smirked. If he had any bad qualities, he thought to himself as he knelt near the door, it was that he was a daredevil. Lucky him women liked daredevils, right? Maybe he could even impress Hinata-chan!

Rooster had seen many so-stupid-it-works tactics employed, such as the whole existence of the cooking nin of Kaminari no Kuni whose whole purpose was to spoil their enemies' missions by making such good food that the ninja couldn't stop eating and would become too fat to fight efficiently. But even that bout of genius-by-idiocy didn't have anything on Kiba's plan, and that was its strenghth.

"You really want to bet all our chances on a box?" Sakura-chan asked and Kiba shrugged.

"A box and a damsel in distress. Who is gonna expect it?" ANBU were the best of the best, ANBU were professionals and although making assumptions was unwise, they had expectations of the kind of people who would fight them. This was the stuff accidental intrigue is made off and in its well-meaning simplicity, it completely fell under Rooster's very paranoid radar.

This is how it went: Hinata abandoned her very recognizable bulky jacket after sacrificing its hood and a good deal of its backside to make a riding hood which she then turned inside out to show the red lining; at times, lot of times, it was really handy to carry around so many sharp objects. She knelt in a corner, shielding her head and neck in an inefficient way that _totally _coincidentally helped to hide her face in the shadows of the hood. Sakura hid herself back in the sewer, hand holding the end of a thin, thin ninja wire. Sasuke put on a cloth mask made of Hinata's jacket's remains and poised himself in a threatening manner. Kiba and Akamaru were hiding under the box.

Sakura was to hid her chakra the best she could until she would make herself known, Kiba was to not make himself known at all. In truth they were counting on Sasuke and Hinata being blinding and deafening and distracting.

"Help!" Hinata shouted. And the play was enacted.

Rooster was surprised to hear a shout, muffled as it was through two doors, from where should have been no people, but he reacted in an instant just as he had been conditioned to do and shunshined into the restroom where…

A masked, young, slim, black-haired man who had no business being there had attacked a slim woman in red riding hood who also shouldn't have been there. Currently he was raining hits upon her and shouting at her for being useless and weak, which she confirmed by simply cowering from him. It made no sense whatsoever and if he wasn't always so careful about testing his food and drink Rooster would have thought someone had drugged him. He attacked them both at full speed, aiming to incapacitate… But as he grabbed the attacker's hand and twisted it behind his back there was the glint of ninja wire in the dim light of a single candle on a table. He dodged, grabbing the man as a human shield, but all the ninja wire did was release sackcloth full of coffee grounds from the ceiling on them.

He paused for a heartbeat, which was enough for the coffee grounds to turn into a genjutsu of a world of raining coffee grounds and nothing more, not even ground below his feet or the captive in his arms. The overpowering scent of coffee and raining grounds forever and ever. But it was a raw genjutsu; he could still hear the three of them moving and rustling and breathing loudly, he knew where they were. He could feel the radiance of their chakra like warm sunlight on bare skin, boldly not hidden at all.

"You saved me from the ter-terrible, villainous man who had, had attacked me without any provocation! My hero!" a curiously muffled voice declared and he took a step back to avoid the body that tried to collide with his, reflexively jumping over a wire meant to trip him as he sent her flying and tore the wire from its handler with a low-level wind jutsu. The childishness of it all kept baffling him. He technically should have called reinforcements since the intruders had gotten inside the Hokage Tower, but it wasn't as if they were any kind of threat.

"Kai!" he dispelled the genjutsu intending to capture and interrogate the children, only to detect the movement shadow behind him half a second too late. A hard hit to the back of his head and a deep bite to the unprotected back of his left knee and he stumbled down, only to be hit one more time as he tried to turn around. His world turned into deep, dimming gray.

Kiba put one foot victoriously on the cardboard box and made a pose.

"I don't hear you mocking my box now," he said and knelt to pat it amicably. "Good box," he said and patted Akamaru too when the nin-dog nudged his hand while glaring at the box. Sasuke-bozu grumbled as he rose from the ground, massaging his tender arm.

"And why did I have to be the one to play the villain?" he asked and gave Kiba his best glare, which sadly held no candle to his big sister's glare when he had skipped his turn to clean the kennel.

"I-I didn't like my part either," Hinata-chan chastised him. Kiba smiled sheepishly at her.

"Sorry, but I didn't trust Sakura-chan to get it right," he explained. He was then struck by a flying kick as Sakura-chan leaped from the sewer with an impressive show of acrobatics that would have allowed her to defeat Ino-chan easily had she used that move in the exams. And Sasuke-san had left them all behind, marching down the corridor towards the cell where a traitor by the name of Danzō was kept.

Sasuke revelled in the moment before pushing the key into the lock and turning it. At least he could do something right. Maybe he wasn't in Itachi's class yet, but he was capable of getting to his enemy and getting some answers. Insert key into lock, turn it. The door opened with a slight creek.

* * *

Sai begun the next morning by saying: "Uchiha Sasuke has such a fortunate life." This was met by the appropriate incredulous stare from Naruto. They had camped next to a small river, rise fields surrounding them from every direction. Sai had gotten the last turn at guarding and he had sat stiffly on the slightly rotting log when Naruto had woken up, grinning sleepily. That had wiped the grin from his face though.

"Uh, do you even know who Sasuke is, Sai? His big brother wiped out his entire clan before he even ten. Then he turned into antisocial, unappreciative bastard and Orochimaru gave him the magical hickey to make him betray us all and…"

"Still, Uchiha-san has you," Sai said. If his previous statement had appeared to be startling, it had been nothing compared to this one. Naruto wasn't quiet often, but now he was opening and closing his mouth again and again like a fish on dry land. "You won't give up on him." The false dawn was shimmering in the horizon, but it was still dark and damp and cold after the night. Sai attributed the chill he felt to that.

"I'm not gonna give up on you either! But you better not do anything as stupid," Naruto said, forcing Sai to conclude that maybe the chill had been psychosomatic after all; the warmth seemed to originate somewhere in his stomach and spread out until it reached his fingers. Naruto was clearly more at ease now that the conversation had turned back to the normal tracks where _he _gave peppy talk to someone else. Naruto, Sai had noticed early during their acquaintance, had no clue how to take compliments.

This might not have seemed like a big deal to other people, but Sai had once read that this might lead to a lacking sense of self worth. As a good friend he had decided to optimize his friend-time with Naruto and composed a timetable in his head which was meant to gradually desensitize Naruto to compliments by increasing the amount he received daily. The first timetable was for four months, starting with AT LEAST two compliments per day and ending with twenty minor compliments OR ten positive comments concerning performance on a mission OR one "I am emotionally attached to you" right when Sai figured out how to say that without being seriously misunderstood. The last could double as a sign of trust, which Naruto was allotted AT LEAST three per day, since by admitting attachment Sai would be making himself vulnerable. This would also desensitize Sai to the fear of attachment and abandonment since, according to the investigation he had done on Naruto, the other boy was most unlikely to ever betray him.

Sai didn't know much about being a friend, but he had always believed that a campaign well planned was a campaign one-fourth won.

The sun was barely up when they continued their trek, blissfully unaware that they had been passed and dismissed at distance by Tsunade's rescue team three times already. They were apprehended on their way to Takigakure of course. Since they were walking in the bright daylight and on the road, the patron, all three chunin, greeted them politely even as they made a threat assessment. Sai made sure to modify his body language according to what Hibari-sensei had told him of pretending to be a civilian and made a resolution to be very shy and silent; his interpersonal skills still weren't that great.

The Taki shinobi all wore chûnin vests and rather similar clothes altogether and they looked so alike that they might have been brothers. Who knew, maybe they were? The leader of the patrol asked them their business firmly, but politely. Tomiko-san, the designated man of the group, launched into an explanation.

"… and we took good Furiko-san with us to share the cost of the mission." Her accent was definitely provincial and she stood like she had been astride too long, smiling with an open mouth. Naruto was fairly hanging from her arm like a little child, but there was nothing childish about his cleavage or the way he piped about wanting to geld his future husband.

The Taki shinobi gave her a wary look, the kind that any male would have, and one even discreetly shifted his legs closer. Tomiko-san admonished Naruto, who looked sheepish.

Sai was more of an observer of human race in its native habitat than a participant at this point, but he found Naruto to be very educational. Not only because of how he acted, but also because of the reactions he got from the people he interacted with.

"You will protect us on our way to the village?" Naruto asked shyly, looking at the tall shinobi through his eyelashes. It was actually disturbing in its come-hither power. One of the shinobi, the one with one earring, nodded, but didn't otherwise comment. "Acting so cool..." Naruto said, sauntering up a lot less shyly to poke him in the chest. "You're trying to seduce an engaged woman. Admit it."

"I am not!" the man exploded. His face was red like sunburned.

"Pish. You can say pish to a shinobi in active duty, right?" Naruto said to no one in particular, rolling his eyes.

"I have no such designs towards you, Yagami-san," the man said, crossing his arms and looking away. Naruto gave him a stern look for a second before a grin broke out. It resembled his happiest grin quite a bit, but since his mouth was smaller now it came out as a lot cuter.

"I know you don't!" he responded. "But I decided to tease you, shinobi-san! You are cute when you are flustered." He tilted his head and the Taki nin made a small, strangled sound, his eyes not knowing where to stay. Sai shook his head, unsure of what to do or why Naruto was behaving like he was. He had seen friendly bantering and flirting before, but this time, he wasn't sure why Naruto was doing it.

Then he noticed that the Taki shinobi were obviously more at ease now, smirking and shaking their heads at the selected victim. Naruto grabbed the man's, whose name turned out to be Inoguchi Keiji, hand and pretty much dragged him towards the village in the horizon, babbling about how he only wanted to geld the husband-to-be because his sister Sakaki deserved better, not because he – she – usually went around attacking men with knives, and how her favourite food was anpan buns and so forth. The two other chunin continued their patrol, leaving Inoguchi-san to Naruto's tender mercies. They kept a good pace for civilians, the sun was shining warmly and birds were chirping. Inoguchi, who was the Taki team medic, engaged Fū-san into a short conversation about painkillers with and without blood-thinning effects, but he and Tomiko-san were allowed to walk in silence.

So teasing people was an effective way of putting them at ease? Tease was to annoy or pester; vex or to make fun of; mock playfully or to arouse hope, desire, or curiosity in without affording satisfaction, at least according to _Konohagakure' Highly Accurate Shinobi Dictionary_. It also meant to cut (tissue, for example) into pieces for examination; that was the shinobi part of it. But cutting things aside, teasing seemed to be a shinobi art. How to go about it…

This was the root of the many social faux passes of Sai. Haruno Sakura would not be pleased.

Around the midday, after a short break, Naruto stole Inoguchi's attention away again, this time dragging Tomiko-san into the conversation, and Sai made his move. Hidden inside his long sleeves was a small pocket tied to the inside of his left forearm. It only took him a covert heartbeat to feel for the clay jar and the metal jar, both smaller than his little finger. He dipped his little finger first inside the clay jar, covering it with protective tallow, and then into the other one full of skin-coloured powder.

He took Fū-san's hand with air of casualness, hiding his own inside the sleeve of the other's dark blue haori.

_Ask away. _His fingers tapped the ANBU code against Fū-san's skin. It was testament to his sempai's professionalism that he didn't react outwards in any way, walking through the sunlight and chirping of cicadas like nothing was wrong.

Sai knew fully well that little wasn't wrong with Fū-san now.

_Inquiry?_

_You know what I mean._

_What did he have to give to Crane?_

_Support. Encouragement. Understanding. Acceptance. Unconditionally._

Taptap tap his fingers tapped, among them his little finger that came in contact with Fū-san at the word encouragement. The man's skin felt clammy and his pulse had quickened.

_What is that worth?_

_You are a weapon of Konoha and you owe it to keep yourself at peak condition. You don't get to refuse training, clean water, bandages or counselling. Dull blades are worth little._

_My past doesn't interfere with my duty._

_Dull blades are worth little. Shinobi that deceive themselves are worth nothing._

Sai could feel the muscles in Fū-san's wrist strain and he smiled at Naruto's back. Fū-san wanted to talk to Naruto, he had simply worded it such way that it wasn't interfering with his sense of duty. And if it wasn't enough…

He let go of Fū-san's hand and after a little wait dipped his finger into the third jar made of polished wood. The poison on Fū-san's skin was quick to absorb, but slow to affect – unless the one poisoned used at least C-level amount of chakra. The more chakra used the quicker the incapacitation and even eventual death. If Fū-san didn't fight once Naruto decided how to go about refusing Danzō's orders, Sai would offer the antidote. If he fought he would go down quickly.

Naruto had gotten him into touch with his self-worth, emotions and respect for the official command structure of the village (kind of). Morals were slower to come by.

That was when Naruto doubled over, pressed his hands over his ears and shrieked like someone was cutting them to pieces, but there was no cause Sai could perceive.

* * *

When Nakamura Fū had been only a twelve-year-old genin, her teacher had given her a biwa string and an order: to make a hole go through its whole length with only her chakra without breaking the string. It had taken her two years and five hundred twenty two strings between missions, but when she was done, not only had she finally completed the most infuriating training exercise ever, but her chakra control was perfection incarnate.

"This mission is going to be a piece of cake," Yukimura-sensei told her. "The nephew of our Daimyo is a passionate chess player and he will take part of a chess tournament that will be held in the capital of Tsuchi no Kuni. He wants you to assassinate one of his opponents, a jeweller called Masahiko Kyo. Here are details of the tournament." And he handed her a brochure.

It was a beautiful day and sunlight shone through the big windows of Yukimura's house. Usually shinobi preferred small windows, but Yukimura appreciated aesthetics and the airy, sunlit room was truly beautiful, every piece of furniture arranged just so.

And of course, anyone trying to sneak in trough one of _these_ windows was in for a world of pain.

And in the middle of this elegance, Fū was sitting on a giant pillow that was shaped like ladybug, a pink ladybug that was forever winking an eye, and read through the brochure. It held all the necessary information about the tournament, its location, schedule of the players and the hotels the players would be booked into. Then she handed it back to Yukimura-sensei and tilted her head.

"He is willing to pay my wages to be rid of a competitor in a chess tournament?" She was used to people wanting other people dead over silly, petty reasons, but this one took the cake.

"As I said, the honorable nephew is passionate about chess. Also, Masahiko-san is entomophobic and the client wishes to have him killed by poisonous insects. I have understood there is a bit of a grudge involved over a lost match." Yukimura-sensei made that little hand wave he always made when he wanted to convey bafflement of humanity as a whole.

"I don't have any special control over insects, regardless of my biju. Any ninja would do." People always expected that hosting the Nanabi came with special connection to insects, like what the Aburame of Konoha had, or maybe some kind of summoning contract. Actually, it was possible that Nanabi could have given her that, but it wouldn't have spit on Fū if she was on fire. She was its jailor after all, and if she died before the village had a chance to extract it from her and transfer into a new host it would be free. It gave her the bare minimum the seal forced it to.

"I know it. He doesn't," Yukimura-sensei said with that painfully wistful look in his eyes. And Fū couldn't take it anymore.

Fū stood up and walked to the door with her hips swinging more than they had when she had walked in, turning to look over her shoulder. She winked at her sensei, allowing her lips go through the motions of a mischievous smile.

"I believe I will go bug a merchant." It was a terrible pun, but Yukimura-sensei's face was lit like a lantern and Fū exited his house with a bounce to her steps, moving her arms and upper torso more than she would have otherwise. She wasn't into the role enough that it would feel real yet and these gaps in the middle always left her feeling like something was clawing inside her chest. Fū only noticed that her hands were pressed into tight fists when it began to hurt and she unfurled them, wondering why she wanted to hit something so much.

She sneaked into the house she shared with Nishimura-obaasama, packed the essentials in silence and left a letter on her caretaker's bedside table. Nishimura-obaasama wouldn't be happy when she saw how her Fū-chan was behaving again and she wanted to postpone the realization.

Fū had barely left the village, running for a few minutes before she realized she was being followed. Whoever was after her was good, but she had the keen sense of smell her biju reluctantly granted her and she was a woman who had the control to make a hole go through a biwa string's whole length with only her chakra without breaking it. She could smell meat eaters, and two of them. There was also the clinical hint of soap. And for all her targets tried to hide their chakra she could feel it prickling against her skin in that tell-tale way of Kekkei Genkai. She changed her course minimally, walking towards a clearing nearby. She would meet her enemies there.

It is a little known fact about the jinchūriki that the strength of their biju doesn't matter as much as the strength of their seal. It hardly matters whether you have the Kyūbi or the Hachibi when there is no way you can channel all their tails and still remain in control. In this, Gaara was really quite unlucky; not only did he have the weakest biju, but also the weakest seal, weakened more by the years he had let Shukaku run amok. Naruto was the exact opposite: in possession of the strongest biju and the strongest seal. Usually a jinchūriki could only handle maybe two tail's worth of chakra without loosing it. Naruto, while he hadn't learned it yet, could handle three.

But Gaara was a devastating opponent despite being so handicapped because the way you use what you have matters just as much as how much you have. He couldn't channel one full tail, but when the kiddy gloves came off he had an instant S-class upgrade. In the same vein Fū, could only channel two tails, but what she did with that power was frankly amazing.

Fū entered the sunlit clearing. It was a sign of the skill of her pursuers that the birds still stood undisturbed. She had slowed into walk. It was now or after the sun had set. And two men in red-black cloaks appeared out of nowhere, one massive and blue and ugly, the other dark and handsome in a way that made Fū curse her bad luck.

She closed her eyes the moment she realized she was up against the second last Uchiha and coated her entire body with a protective layer of chakra. It wasn't a popular technique since it couldn't block even a barrage of kunai and drew on half of the reserves of a regular jōnin. But then Fū had two hundred times the chakra regular jōnin had. She performed Suirō no Jutsu around them all, encasing them within a sphere of water. With the preparations out of the way she was getting started.

"Either you are really stupid, imprisoning yourself, or you are playing sneaky with your betters," Kisame taunted her. And just like Yukimura-sensei would have, wanted Fū's mouth curved into a mischievous smile.

"Seniority can translate into senility when the years add up," she challenged the men and she _screamed._

There seemed to be no voice, no noise, but she heard an exclamation of pain as her scream hit flesh and cooked it, bouncing back from her own protected skin without doing harm, and the water prison surrounding them begun to evaporate into thick, white mist. Fire jutsu hurled towards her, she blocked it with her scream, made the flames bounce back as a wall of death and twisted out of the way of a sword and a barrage of kunai and a water jutsu that she turned into more mist, and lightning jutsu was cast that she had to dodge and she screamed. She screamed and the fire of her voice burned flesh. She twisted her body in the hot, wet air, calling for more water to keep the water sphere solid. They were dancing in boiling mist, waltzing in her deadly trap.

"Take this, beetle biddie!" Kisame shouted at her and cast some ice variation of the standard Mizu ware, making her mist to fall to the ground in ice droplets and cooling the temperature. Only, in the heat her voice had generated, the jutsu wasn't fast enough. She made her next scream even more focused, like a knife, and followed through with her wakizashi, her eyes still closed.

She drew blood, Kisame drew more. Everything seemed to snap into terrible clarity and she could hear her heartbeats hammering against her eardrums. Itachi was staying out of it and it unnerved Fū, but at least she had more room to dodge and parry. She couldn't allow pain to distract her for all it was sending needles up her leg and back and straight into her brain, Yukimura-sensei would be so disappointed if she did. She called more water and vaporized it with her battle scream, favouring her left leg as her right was bleeding quite badly.

She performed a quick medical jutsu to stop the bleeding before it started to affect her endurance; this was difficult to do without stopping her attack, but not impossible. The tissue damage would have to wait.

"What is this?" Kisame shouted in a pained voice. Fū opened her eyes; the mist was so thick there was no way she could see the Uchiha's eyes if he didn't thrust his face into hers and if he could do that, the Sharingan was inconsequential in the situation. The mist was under the control of her voice, she could feel them moving and sent a lightning jutsu, just B-class in the midst of all the conducting water, trusting her chakra armour to protect her from a blast like that.

"Highly focused ultrasound waves. The fire of the air." Her opponents were better at genjutsu and kenjutsu and she would have wagered they beat her at ninjutsu as well, but they had made a mistake by allowing her to make the first move. She screamed and the air was smelling like water and cooking human.

Then a force of air hit against her, throwing her physically against the water of their prison and knocking the wind out of her. The mist couldn't evaporate in their prison, but she closed her eyes because she knew there was a clear path between her and her opponents. Kisame attacked her with silent, deadly intent and she dodged, opening her mouth, reinforcing her technique with Nanabi's chakra. Before she could get a whisper out, a focused force of air hit her inside her open mouth, forcing the building sound back. Blood red pain flashed through Fū's head and down her throat, scolding like boiling water. And she was falling through grey fog and into darkness, the pain dimming little by little.

"You had to wait that long, bastard?" she heard an angry voice demanding.

She screamed one more time with raw throat, directing it blindly to the direction of the voice, and she was rewarded with a muffled sound of pain and something popping like the skin of an overcooked sausage.

"I wanted to copy her technique and her countermeasure. Besides, at your level you should have been able to get a drop at her." After that, Fū knew only blessed black.

* * *

Day 16/2, suborn count 2.

Recorded by the surveillance seal: Root squad sneaking into allied village (Takigakure) Security Zone under pretence of civilians.

* * *

AN: Entomophobia is fear of insects. And don't worry, Fū-chan, its no shame to lose to Itachi.

Why did Itachi wait so long before getting to copying? The mist was interfering with his sight so he had to get close without being seen; Sharingan's no Byakugan. This is manga canon. In the anime, Itachi has demonstrated the ability to see through a mist jutsu, contradicting earlier anime, but I'm not counting that.


	12. Day 16: Cry HAVOC!

**Day 16: Cry HAVOC! and let slip the fox of war**

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

* * *

The biju aren't evil, or rather, a little while ago they weren't evil. Not in their natural state. They weren't evil because they weren't sentient enough to be moral beings in the first place.

There is an insect species called spider wasp that has a very gruesome way of propagation. They paralyze a spider with a venomous stinger. Once paralyzed, a single egg is laid in the abdomen of the spider. When the wasp larva hatches, it begins to feed on the still-living spider from the inside out. It is a terribly _painful_ death, but the wasps aren't evil. That was they way they evolved, pure and simple. There is a cloud manifestation called cumulonimbus storm cloud manifestation. Long story made short, this can lead to a form of lightning called positive flash, half a million amperes worth of electricity that can heat the air four times hotter than the surface of the sun. This is terribly destructive, but the clouds aren't evil – this is just the way they develop

And the biju, beings of pure chakra, developed to be destructive. But they had developed to have the capacity to evolve too, and that proved to be a problem when they were shoved inside human brains. They evolved into sentient beings, if not terribly intelligent right away. And those humans were taught and taught in turn lessons of misplaced anger and undeserved fear, lessons of cruelty and indifference as a moral being, lessons of pain and awareness of death. Lessons of unfairness and revenge and _an eye for an eye and life as interest._

It was the humans who taught the biju to hate. The humans taught the lesson of evil – painstakingly and thoroughly.

Kyūbi lasted longer than most, but in the end, it was taught this just like all biju. What Uchiha Madara had begun and the Yondaime Hokage unintentionally continued, the villagers of Konoha completed. Loneliness and pain (but in Naruto's case mostly emotional pain) and fear for life (since this seal would drag Kyūbi to death along with its host) led to bitterness and frustration and eventually hate. But not madness, not like the other biju, because there were lessons Naruto alone taught.

Naruto always had two lessons to teach to all those who crossed his path: hope and comradeship.

* * *

The screams had ceased and the forest smelled like smoke and water and dizzying, bittersweet iron. The family-murdering bastard-Itachi was there, with the freaky shark-man Kisame. The blue man was holding an unconscious, bleeding, green-haired girl in his arms. They had gotten Fū-chan!

Anger swirled at the bottom of Naruto's stomach like a whirlpool, boiling ad bubbling towards his throat where it would unleash a scream of rage, towards his fingers where soft human fingernails would turn into talons. But curiously, the world slowed down everywhere around Naruto. Itachi turned towards him, but Naruto could see every single hair of his fluttering in the wind. He drew breath for the scream, but his lungs filled so slowly he was half afraid he would choke. And through this slowness he could hear Hibari-sensei's voice, almost feel her palm slamming into his diaphragm when he had charged at her again. _Don't rush in head first! _she chided him. _Measure twice, cut once._

Kisame had Fū-chan hostage and that was bad. But he was bleeding; Fū-chan hadn't gone down without a fight. His left side was dripping red to the dirt drip drip drip and his sword was so long he couldn't hold it against Fū-chan's throat – or other vital parts – unless he dropped her first and he couldn't handle it well anyway if he hold on to her. Itachi was also burned, but Naruto didn't think that would help a whole lot. He remembered how Sasuke-kun had gone down when the missing-nin had just looked into his eyes.

_Don't look at his face then. Look at his hands and legs; he is going to attack you with them. _Somewhere in the background he could hear Kyūbi-voice howling **raGeBLOODkILlragekill**, but it was muffled somehow, like someone had dropped a thick blanket over the cage. _First get Fū-chan free. He won't take you seriously _– _use that._

"Thanks, Hibari-sensei!" he crowed. The world was speeding up around him again, but it still wasn't full and quick, but he had a plan. He pulled chakra from the damned fox and circled the two missing-nin, trying to look like he was about to pounce them head first, giving it his best snarl, but then man-Fū threw a water type blade jutsu at Itachi and dropped. Just like that. What had happened to him? Naruto didn't know, as no one had done anything before he started so he could only hope the man would hang on. He made a Kage Bunshin and grabbed the man even as he sent a whole lot of other copies to attack Itachi and make a giant, orange Naruto-curtain between the man's eyes and his own.

His friends and Inoguchi-san were looking horrified at his handling of the Iwa-style stand-off, but Naruto only laughed as memories of sword thrusts blinked across his mind as his clones met a violent end one by one. Kisame laughed also.

"Decided to bat for the other team while we were away? It's your turn to catch now!" he howled. Naruto hadn't known that one-upping people could taste so good, like the best Ichiraku miso ramen. He formed the seal ram and thrust it upon the blue man.

Hoshigaki Kisame made a butt-ugly girl. S/he had a thin waist and big boobs, but his shoulders were still massive and his hips so small he looked half like a drag queen without the drag, half a triangle standing on its top. He had really pretty eyes with long eyelashes and a full, red mouth like a cherry, but his face was still big and angular so the result was like putting a girly unicorn painting into heavy, dark wooden frames better suited for wood carvings – they plain didn't match. Girly-girly pigtails crowned the terrifying spectacle. All movement had ceased, the only sounds were those of the wind blowing through the treetops. The air was electrified with horrified disbelief.

(Naruto didn't know it, but he was the first person ever to make an Uchiha want to dig his eyes off with a spoon. That it was Uchiha Itachi, was fishcake on top of a bowl of ramen.)

Kisame couldn't feel his new mammaries very well with both Fū-chan and his sword in hand, but he made a good attempt anyway. His eyes widened and his mouth twisted into a strange half-snarl of horror when he realised that, yes, it wasn't just an illusion, but real flesh. His legs twisted closer each other like to protect something that wasn't there anymore. Men were so scared and disturbed at the prospect of loosing their family jewels even if they were given something in the trade. Naruto, the Konoha poster child for the New Family-Friendly Definition of Borderline Insane, didn't quite get what the big deal was, though he had to admit to himself – maybe it was because his hormones hadn't kicked in yet. But Kisame's body was slack with shock and Itachi wasn't moving a finger despite having dispelled the Naruto-curtain. Shunshin and Kawarimi no Jutsu, just like Hibari sensei had taught him – they came easily like beads on a necklace, one after the other – and Naruto was left standing with Fū-chan in his arms, girly-Kisame left holding a log.

"Don't mock the Girl Power. And Fū-chan's ours now, so neener, neener, neener!" So maybe this wasn't exactly what Hibari-sensei would have done – she was giving him this Look in his head now – but it got the job done, right?

A water jutsu Narauto hadn't even heard of before hurled through the air towards him, ripping water from everything in its path and leaving only sad, dust-dry husks of plants and insects in its wake and forming into a blade of ice. He dodged it, still cradling Fū-chan in his arms, and barely had the time to hop out of the way of Itachi's sword. But he remembered to keep his eyes on his hands and feet, and unless the man felt like kneeling in front of him, he couldn't catch his eyes. Then Sai's ink creatures, some unholy mixes between lions and dragons and monkeys, intercepted Kisame and Tomiko-chan jumped at Itachi, her katana a silvery line in the air. He scented blood and ink and sweat and aggression like gunpowder.

Unceremoniously Naruto shoved Fū-chan into Inoguchi-san's arms. His heartbeat was hammering against his eardrums.

"Protect her with your life!" he ordered. The man was staring at his chest, his face red like sunburn again, and Naruto realised the jutsu on him had dispelled.

"But… what? Weren't you… And weren't you going to…" the man asked meekly, but Naruto jumped into the fray again, whooping victoriously. Again the world around him was slowing down, but this time it was accompanied with the red, biting haze of Kyūbi's chakra and howling un-muffled.

Kyūbi had no love for Naruto – for who would love their jailor and future executioner – but it understood the concept of us and Nanabi was us like Fū was us to Naruto. It understood the concept of protecting the us. It understood, like Naruto understood, that Akatsuki intended to make an object out of it and its kin, but it also understood not giving up in front of superior force because as long as there is life, there is hope. This was what had kept it sane within Naruto, and this was what made something new bleed into Naruto.

Less hate, more determination. And as the minds connected remained curiously clear and blended around the edges it learned again as they charged. Many would claim otherwise, but Naruto had learned kunai was more useful than a club and that day Kyūbi learned it also.

"MINE!"

A cloud of red chakra surrounded him, too much for his chakra system to contain. Oh yeah, possessiveness had been learned along the way too.

* * *

Everything had gone to a hell in the infamous handbasket for no reason Fū could name. Naruto-san had collapsed for no discernible reason, holding his ears and moaning, in obvious pain, but the cause of that pain wasn't the least bit obvious. There was a strange ringing sensation in Fū's ears also, more felt that heard, like something only just beyond his hearing range, but what it was and why it caused Naruto-san such pain? He'd had more important things to worry about, like the man who had been assigned to escort them to the village and who had been looking one twitch of a finger away from attacking them. He had turned towards the man, his eyes wide, and he had whispered a horrified question, stepping close oh-so-carefully, kunai ready to be unsheathed and struck into the man's eyes.

And then Naruto had begun to run. And there was no mistaking him for a civilian anymore. The Taki shinobi ran after Naruto-san, they ran after both and then they had stumbled onto a clearing in a forest, too close to the village for Fū's comfort, and there stood Uchiha-san and Hoshigaki-san, the latter holding bleeding, unconscious Nakamura Fū.

Naruto-san hadn't attacked them, but circled them, still in his female disguise and looking feral, feeling feral to Fū's senses. The Taki shinobi hadn't attacked anyone, his face turning from the Akatsuki agents to their team to the Akatsuki agents again, trying to decide who to attack now. He had attempted to attack the Taki shinobi, to remove one variable and eliminate a witness, when he had felt strange weakness spreading within. He hadn't felt it while he had been running, too distracted by his goal to pay attention to the chakra pathways of his body, but he knew what this meant: he had been poisoned. And so he attacked Uchiha-san instead, hoping to weaken him for the others, but the man dodged his water jutsu – best match against the man's fire-based jutsu – with almost insulting ease. And then the ground rose to fall into him and Fū was lying on his stomach, feeling nauseous.

_Have I given Danzō-sama a reason to doubt my loyalty or stability?_ he wondered dimly, soon followed by, _who was the one to pick a moment like this to assassinate me? They have endangered the mission!_

And then bright neon orange arms grabbed him and hauled to safety mere second before a fire jutsu swept over the spot he had been lying in. He spat grass and dirt from his mouth and glared at Naruto-san who was now carrying him away from the commencing fight. It was uncomfortable journey, for while Naruto-san was strong enough to carry more than he weighed, Fū was much taller than the young shinobi.

"Soft-hearted. I can not be saved now, but the mission can be salvaged," he hissed, closing his eyes against the world spiralling around him. The new recruits were always unnecessarily attached to the idea of protecting their comrades, but at least Naruto-san hadn't been the idiot to pick a moment like this to pick him off; he wasn't nearly ruthless enough to poison a teammate.

"For future reference, if you have to… poison a squad mate on a mission, make sure it doesn't endanger the mission objective. Now go join the fight," he forced himself to speak. A last favour to Danzō-sama, last instructions to a kohai before his usefulness was spent.

He was dropped to the ground like a sack of rice. Then he was shaken until he opened his eyes. And there he was, kami damn it, not leaving him.

"I'm Narutwo, boss told me to take care of you. And I'm not gonna poison anyone," the… kage bunshin said, kneeling practically on top of him. They were out of the forest, under cloudless, blue sky. The sun was shining into his eyes and he narrowed them, irritated. "Hang in there, we are gonna take care of you once the fight has been won." Naruto-bunshin grinned widely, a touch of worry behind the formidable-looking teeth.

And that made Fū angry, made him promptly see a Kyūbi kind of red. His blood was pounding in his ears from the poison, he told himself, pounding so hard he could barely hear the words spilling from his mouth.

"I have _dignity_, you know. I can die when it's required of me without making an unseemly spectacle of myself! I have always obeyed my orders, even before I joined the Root! Yes, I bet you thought these things didn't happen in the official rank and file, did you? Well surprise, you can any day be ordered to take a mission that will make you hate yourself and have someone like your precious Hibari-sensei forever remind you of it. And who even eats something as disgusting as spinach yoghurt anyway? And she smoked and her big dream was to be a house wife! There was nothing in her that should have attracted me!" Part of Fū was flailing inside his head, trying desperately to close the floodgates, but nothing could stop the barrage of words now. "You think what's inside you that makes you a monster? Wait until–AUWCH!" And Naruto-san did what he couldn't do for himself: shut him up.

"What's inside boss doesn't make him a monster! And don't make fun of other people's favourite food," the clone hissed. And all fight was drained from his tired, weakening body. Fū had forgotten it was a clone he was ranting at, a brainless construct. He rubbed his aching head, embarrassed, but grateful at the same time. This wasn't the real thing, no one would have to know he had lost it at long last.

A giant explosion rocked the ground and acidic, poisonous, red chakra flared through the air, grating against his body like sandpaper. Fū had risen to a half sitting position, but now he allowed himself drop back to the ground. There was no way even a blind and deaf ninja could miss the fight now. He could only hope that Nakamura-san would lose her life in the melee.

"Were you in love with someone?" Naruto-bunshin asked with considerably less ire. Maybe it was because it was just a brainless construct who couldn't reveal the secret, maybe it was because he was dying, but a knot loosened itself inside Fū's stomach. He could talk. It wouldn't change anything now and that was freeing, in a way.

" Don'thave to worry about… consequences," he murmured. He was feeling sleepy. "I was sent to Kumo to spy. I'm… Yamanaka, I could use my family jutsu. I was a blacksmith there. I met Nigaki Mika. I had to seduce her to get… access to the right people. I got her pregnant. And then I had to… leave her." He had promised to marry her only two days before leaving, knowing full well he would have to leave. And he hated himself.

To be an illegitimate child wasn't so bad in a Hidden Village; they followed their own, warped moral code, kunoichi even more than civilian women. Who could muster enough righteous anger over unintended consequences to make a fuss when anyone could be ordered into the same situation? But to be the illegitimate child of a spy, to be a mother of such a child? That was a horse of another colour, as Hibari-san could well testify. And Hibari-san hated her father with the unforgiving intensity of a forest fire, carried the damning weight of knowledge on her shoulders every moment of every day – or at least, she had. Fū glared at the boy who had given Hibari-san an absolution from her demons, hating himself for wanting the same absolution, hating the boy for daring to make him hope.

"I loved her!" he spat. He had nicknamed the mission as Spinach Yoghurt, laughing at the woman's expense, and then he had fallen in love with her. Mika's black, fiery eyes like still glowing embers, her beautiful smile and her food cravings when she had gotten pregnant that had made her normal cuisine look normal, he missed her and she hated him.

"Tell her so and apologize," Naruto-bunshin ordered like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Like that would help any," Fū whined. He was almost hoping the poison was quicker; first he had spilled his guts and now he was whining? If things took one more turn towards pathetic, it could be considered mercy killing.

"Maybe not, but you owe her an apology and I'm gonna kick your ass from here to Konoha if you try to weasel out of it." Naruto-bunshin cracked his knuckles and glared at him. Fū felt his mouth twisting into a tired smirk.

"Let's make a deal. If I live, I will apologize to her." It was the ninja way to make empty promises, to renegade on deals for the mission, to give your word when you knew there was no way you could keep it.

"That's the spirit. Not like you want to die anyway," Naruto-bunshin declared and thumped his shoulder.

Fū shrugged. Of course he didn't want to die, but what difference did it make? Danzō-sama had decreed that he would die and not even the most bull-headed ninja in Konoha could change that. He wasn't as vocal about his beliefs as Hyūga Neji had been, but just as unyielding. He had a fate. Not even normal fate, but a Fate with a capital letter that meant he would have to be miserable and die a violent death for a village that could never appreciate what he had given up for it. Like Hyūga Neji, he was an unmovable object. Like Hyūga Neji, he had collided with an irresistible force. And just like that, soft, white, very beautiful hands shoved the bunshin away from him and when the dimming world in Fū's eyes cleared a little, the first thing he saw was an ample, creamy white cleavage. His eyes bulged.

"I am here to rescue Naruto-kun. Pray to your gods that he is alright," Slug Sannin Senju Tsunade growled at him even as her healing chakra flowed through his body like warm milk and lightening, cleansing it inside and out. Fū could not but stare.

"We are here to rescue girl-Fū," Naruto-bunshin explained helpfully. Fū tried to collect his thoughts, but for all the dull ache in his head was gone, he could only think in grunts like 'whaa' and 'but' and 'erm'. An irresistible force that was a lot more irresistible than his unmovable object was unmovable collided with his brain. Rescue Naruto-san? Naruto-san had joined the Root and a _Sannin_ thought he rated a _rescue_? What was wrong in the world that it turned out like this?

"At least I didn't talk to the real Naruto," was what came out of his mouth. No one had to know how he had lost all his precious control. But Naruto-bunshin chuckled ominously.

"When I dispel the boss is gonna get all my memories," it explained, dispelling the deceiving feeling of anonymity, and Fū couldn't help but think maybe they could make a shinobi out of the boy after all. In no way did that make him feel any less mortified.

"I want mercy killing." He was delivered a solid thwack to the head, courtesy of an irate medic. But something in Senju-san's cold green eyes had warmed up and softened, like ice thawing into sea water. Fū didn't want to know why. She had to be reading his brainwaves somehow, not his face. He couldn't be that transparent, could he?

"No can do. You have got a promise to keep." And everyone knew, even in Root, that Naruto-san considered promises sacred.

"How could you have turned out like this?" Naruto-san hadn't been given any chances, support, trust. How could he give from his own emptiness? Like Hyūga Neji before him, Fū saw his fate crumbling around him. Unlike with Hyūga Neji, it didn't even take the genuine article.

"I was born awesome!"

* * *

Sai drew a dragon with quick, sure flicks of his brush and channelled his chakra through it. There was the brief sensation of _leap_ and _air_ and _weightlessness_ when their chakra momentarily overlapped, but it was severed when the tailtip of the dragon left the paper, leaving it pristine. Sai dodged jutsu and a hail of kunai as the dragon descended upon the two missing nins and struck down. Hoshigaki-san severed its head easily, splattering ink all around the ground without even pausing from his strike against Naruto's clones. He was overwhelmingly powerful and so was his compatriot. They were leagues above Sai's team.

But they had already been injured, and injured badly by the looks of it. Naruto dispensed his clones like cheap kunai, sending them against both enemies in a seemingly mindless way, but Sai noticed that the swarm of them forced Hoshigaki-san into close combat, forced him to strike and dodge and block, forced his heart to beat harder. Forced him to bleed more and more. Simultaneously, another batch of clones kept jumping at Uchiha-san from surprising angles and their purpose didn't seem to be to hit him as much as force him to use jutsus rather than kenjutsu, force him to spend chakra – and Sai remembered a research paper he had read that had speculated about the drain of simply keeping Sharingan activated at it's highest level would cause. He was certain Naruto was doing this on purpose. He wondered whose strength would wane first, Naruto's or their enemies'.

Hoshigaki-san sped to him in a blue flash and Sai had barely enough time to dodge. He answered with kunai and one of them stuck into the big blue man's left arm – but his sword brushed him lightly, only just whispered across his skin with the flat edge, but that whisper skinned his arm like sandpaper full of razor blades. He couldn't help an exclamation of pain even as he shunshined farther and created.

They were foxes. He couldn't quite track their trajectory as the constructs blurred into action, striking at random in a zig-zagging path between the two Akatsuki nin that threw at least his opponent into enough confusion to help him survive, never certain where the blade-teethed whirlwind would strike next. Leather armour was left hanging in strips, metal dented and flesh bled. Seven new Naruto clones attacked and Sai struck at their wake, adopting Naruto's strategy to try and keep Hoshigaki-san moving as much as possible.

"You sure are an annoying little pest. Even if your technique is kind of girly," Hoshigaki-san mocked, but made a little movement that betrayed his unease. It seemed that Naruto had indeed made an impression.

"I think you have learned better than to speak like that, Hoshigaki-san," he quipped back to the again-man, making a gesture towards his own chest. "I have read a person who is afraid of some part of themselves often attempts to make up for a character trait by over-exaggerating its opposite. There is no shame in identifying with the female gender. Half of humanity is female," he pointed out, perfectly justified and reasonable by his reckoning, but Hoshigaki-san's face was distorted by a snarl of rage.

He did something, a strike with his sword not even intended to connect and probably some kind of lightening-based jutsu that didn't require use of hand signs. But Sai didn't have enough time to identify it before flashing, sizzling pain stuck him to the stomach and hurled him back several feet. As the back of his head hit the ground with a thud that was painful, but dimmed by the pain the lightning had caused, Sai was grateful it hadn't hit him in the chest. That would have stopped his heart.

He tried to sit up, but all his abdominable muscles refused to work. He managed to force himself into a half-sitting position by leaning into his left arm, the one that was bleeding because he needed his right arm to defend himself. Hoshigaki-san started a slow, mocking tread towards him, interrupted for a second when Tomiko-san's unconscious – hopefully unconscious – form was hurled between them into the woods.

"This is not your day, unless we are talking about dying," Hoshigaki-san said, allowing his eyes follow Tomiko-san's boneless flight for a moment. Sai almost agreed with him, lamented that he had learned to live only to die, when something acidic and intangible and red exploded.

Naruto howled as if in terrible pain. The red flash was Kyūbi's chakra that first exploded, then imploded and exploded again in a huge pillar towards the sky. The whisker marks on Naruto's cheeks had already widened and darkened, but now they became even more profound. His teeth looked terrible sharp, his fingernails were talons and his eyes were blood red, but what caught and held Sai's half horrified, half fascinated eyes were the tails. There had been two translucent chakra tails sprouting from Naruto's backside before, but now even more chakra churned there, condensing into a third one. Both Hoshigaki-san and Uchiha-san had turned towards him now, but Sai didn't fool himself into thinking Hoshigaki-san had forgotten about him. So he baited his time. When Hoshigaki-san attacked, he would attack also and he was fairly sure that the man could dodge him or Naruto, but not both of them at the same time.

"Who are you and why are you helping me." A painfully raspy voice broke the tension. Sai's head whipped towards the voice, where a green-haired, rumpled and bloody young girl was standing next to the man, Inoguchi-san, who had escorted them towards the village. Inoguchi-san looked nervous, girl-Fū-san looked determined and Sai was sure, that the man had been carrying her towards the village when she woke up.

Naruto's eyes softened. Sai didn't like the way he was looking at her.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto and I'm helping you because I'm a jinchūriki too, the jinchūriki of Kyūbi no Yōko. We have got to have each other's backs since there are only nine of us and the world is absolutely idiotic about us and all kinds of sickos in stupid straw hats try to kidnap us. But never fear! We will prevail!" And Naruto made a V sign for victory, giving a grin that looked rather intimidating with that sharp teeth.

"You are a jinchūriki?" Fū-san whispered, straightening her back and looking Naruto into his red eyes. "Would you say that you are my brother?"

Sai had once before seen a look like that, on the face of one of his targets. The man had been an opium addict and Sai had gotten near to him under the pretence of being a dealer. The way he had looked at the poisoned opium, like a hungry dog given a steak, like a starving man delivered a dinner and then told to wait for grace, it had revolted Sai even as numb as he had been then. The man would have done anything for his next pipe. But on the face of this girl, it only made him kind of sad.

"Of course I'll be your brother. I can introduce you to Gaara-kun too. Don't worry about the tales, he's a lot better now," Naruto said. "But we gotta win this fight first." And those four sentences sated the hunger in the girl's sad eyes, made her mouth curve into something that Sai wasn't sure was a smile, but that made him still think of the relief he had seen in wounded men's faces when they were given painkillers.

"Well, brother, if the day's going to hell in a hand basket, I want my share of the sandwiches." She cracked her knuckles and the end of her sentence gave way to a small, out-of-place giggle.

"I don't have sandwiches, but I can make you ramen once this is over," Naruto promised happily. It was… unnerving, the way his happy face and the utter malice of his chakra contradicted each other. Sai didn't like getting mixed signals.

"How touching. We can deliver you into your fates together," Hoshigaki-san mocked them again. But Uchiha-san was looking towards where they had come from, looking contemplative. And then Hibari-sensei, a jōnin he recognized as Naruto's previous sensei, Hatake-san, and a young Hyūga he was fairly sure was the clan's new prodigy, Neji, landed from the trees between the wounded and the Akatsuki ninja.

"Hah! Now you are in trouble. Hibari-sensei is made of awesome!" Naruto crowed and applauded. His aura wasn't waning, however.

"Hibari-sensei is made of awesome? Aren't you forgetting someone?" Hatake drawled lazily as he flipped the hitai-ite from his eye, revealing the Sharingan of his late teammate.

"And you too," Naruto allowed, waving a hand towards the man.

"What do you mean 'you too'?" Now the silver-haired man was beginning to sound annoyed. More teasing, Sai concluded, but why would Naruto try to put the man at ease in a situation like this? Alert was better.

"It appears that Naruto-san doesn't consider you to be _hip _and _cool_," Hyūga Neji deadpanned and for some reason this made the Copynin twitch. Fū-san was muffling her giggling with her fist now and Sai thought she might be approaching hysteria. But the tables had been turned against their opponents now and when a second later Senju Tsunade appeared from the bushes, dragging _their_ Fū with her – and this could quickly get very confusing, the two of them in the same place – he thought the two Akatsuki agents might just up and leave.

"A ragtag bunch of tree-huggers comes to rescue your target and it seems that now you are in need of a rescue yourselves. How pitiful." The deriving words sounded from above them.

On a sole, sturdy branch of a very suffering-looking tree there stood a man with silver hair slicked back, purple eyes and the hitai-ite of Yugakure with a slash across it. Even more prominent was the Jashin amulet and the red, three-bladed scythe at his back. Sai wondered if what he was feeling was frustration and whether it was a natural reaction to the situation or not. But things had seemed to be turning out in their favour and now this man had appeared when Tomiko-san needed medical treatment and the one who could give it best was going to be locked in a battle soon. Hidan of Akatsuki had absolutely no moral restraints regarding the people he killed; slaughter was his religious calling and he took pleasure in making his opponents' deaths as painful as possible. Sai was among the lower-level fighters here and already badly wounded. Yet the best he could muster was annoyance.

Then Naruto opened his mouth.

"Hey, aren't you the guy with the evil bunny god?"

* * *

Day 16/2, suborn count 3.

Recorded by the surveillance seal: Let slip the fox of war!

* * *

AN: If this Sai seems weaker than the canon Sai please keep in mind that this is Sai three years before his canon appearance. Those three years were bound to make a difference.

Several people have asked from me what suborn means in the reviews so here I answer the question once and for all. One of the meanings of suborn (verb) is "to induce someone to secretly do an unlawful thing". Naruto may not be inducing them to do anything illegal as far as Konoha is concerned, but since they go against the Root's "law" I thought it fitting. This is why Fū-chan won't enter the suborn count even though she gets narutofied too, as opposed to Fū-san.


	13. Day 16: Bad Diplomacy

**Bad Diplomacy**

**or**

**My Gods Are Better Than Your God**

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

* * *

_Hey, aren't you the guy with the evil bunny god?_

Silence. You could have heard a pin dropping into cotton wool.

The silver-haired man's face kept twitching towards at least five separate emotions at once and not managing a single one, his lips baring his teeth and gum, his eyes bulging, his one eyebrow going this way and the other that way and the muscles of his left cheek pulling. Everybody's head kept turning from Naruto to Hidan to Naruto again like they were watching a tennis match, only no match in the history of humankind could have inspired so horrified, disbelieving expressions. Only Uchiha Itachi looked still calm and even his jaw had dropped a minuscule, little notch. Hidan of Akatsuki opened his mouth and everyone flinched, but closed it again without having said a word. Only Naruto was looking at him with a heated expression on his face.

"And what kind of moron worships a god that's called "evil god" anyway? That's a walking cliché, too evil to win. Besides, Shiva is a lot stronger god anyway. He's the standard of invincibility, might and terror, but he's a figure of honor, delight and brilliance too. And his priests don't go around wearing angsty pendants and black nail polish. You look like an Uchiha! And Hash-Inau-uk Kamui's a great protector and that's a lot better than someone who just kills a lot! My gods make the world work where you god just goes around killing puppies and shit! Think of those poor puppies!"

"Bunny… Uchiha. Puppies," Hidan forced the words out and his face transformed into a mask of rage, all blood draining from his lips so they paled into white with the slightest reddish shadows at the corners of his mouth, his red eyes gleaming maniacally, but what Naruto looked was his left cheek, the cheek that kept twitching and pulling his mouth. It was red and even redder was the thin, thin line and the single drop of blood.

It was called a whiplash among the ninja. Even the best of them couldn't run in trees at pace that occasionally threatened to break the sound barrier without getting their bare skin cut by the tips of branches every once in a while. Those little cuts didn't even register, not when the people cut had accumulated pain threshold that allowed them to stand and fight with one leg broken in two places, and that was doubly more so for Hidan whose favourite technique was to take advantage of his immortality by stabbing himself at vital organs and transferring the damage to his victims. It was just a little cut that barely even bled.

_Ox in__ first position for power, force and drive_, whispered Hibari-sensei's voice in his ears, speaking softly of her vampire kinjutsu. The world and time stretched as Kyubi's power filled him. Like in a dream Hidan leaped from the branch he had stood on, swinging his scythe upwards. Naruto's knees bent, ready to jump as the scent of blood multiplied in his mind and the edges of his vision were washed in red. _Dragon in second for power and snake for healing and dragon in fourth reverses the sign before it. Half boar and Jin for blood_… His hands flashed through the seals and he jumped up, three blurs were leaping to his side and the one above him screamed, slashing down with his scythe. His hands made one last seal, snake in the end for strike outside and he twisted in the midair.

"Take that!" he screamed and then his mouth was filled with blood and pain slashed through the left side of his torso, but rather than scream he could only sputter the blood off his mouth.

The cut on Hidan's face sprayed blood like water from a geyser. Naruto had twisted half out of the way and Hidan's hands had jolted and instead of severing Naruto's head from his shoulders the great scythe had struck into his shoulder and back, the first and second blade sinking into his flesh. Hidan landed on his legs and Naruto only barely, grabbing a hold of the blunt edge of one of the scythe's blades to keep from falling on his back. Tsunade-baachan came from left, Hibari-sensei from right and Kakashi from above. Quicker than eye could see Hidan drew back his weapon and jumped back.

Naruto didn't let go of the scythe. The blades slid out of his flesh like it was butter and he barely felt it knitting together again, hanging onto the back of the blade, his feet rising from the ground. Hidan didn't let this stop himself, slamming Naruto into Kakashi –sensei in the midair, forcing the silver-haired man to redirect his Raikiri _very quickly _(nearly blowing off his arm), dodging both Tsunade-baachan and Hibari-sensei. Kakashi-sensei, still reeling from the abortion of his jutsu, fell on his back to the ground and Hidan, paying no more attention to Naruto tenaciously hanging from his blade than he would to a fly, turned it to hack the Copy Nin's chest open.

Naruto howled. He couldn't think anymore, he couldn't hear Hibari-sensei, he only saw Kakashi-sensei, saw _his_ and _wounded_ and saw death gliding closer on three blood-red blades. His body swung, independent from his conscious mind, and he didn't even feel the pain when the blades impaled his right leg, slamming him on top of Kakashi-sensei.

Hidan's cheek was still bleeding heavily, if not spurting blood like a fire hose anymore, and his face and chest and arm were dripping red, the smell of it tantalizing. Someone screamed. He didn't understand the words, only the fear. He didn't have a name for the voice, only recognition. His precious person was afraid and he wasn't TAKING THAT anymore!

Hidan was fuming. Scratch that, he was so enraged he could barely see straight. He was dimly aware of Uchiha and Hoshigaki disappearing somewhere left, fighting a bunch of other Konoha dogs, but all his world had narrowed down into him and that Kyūbi-cretin Uzumaki. Gone were all thoughts of taking it alive, Pein's plans, everything but his desire to end the thing in the most painful way possible. He had more than enough of its blood, if only he could get away from it long enough to form the circle… If only he could get it to let go of HIS HOLY SCYTHE! Heresy! Anathema!

A horde of black, winged monkeys dived in from above, long-taloned hands extended, ready to tear and rend and claw. One by one they sacrificed themselves to Hidan's scythe in a series of explosions that sent ink spraying everywhere, getting into Hidan's face, forcing him to close his eyes to protect them. All the while Naruto was swinging himself closer to him on the handle of the scythe like it was a monkey bar, approaching slowly but surely.

In the end it was a lightning jutsu that detached the accursed scum of earth from his weapon, making his muscles spasm middle changing grips. Hidan grinned with anticipation of blood and screams and sweet and sour sacrifice like blood and orange nailed to a wall, retreating from the pulsing ball of searing chakra.

"I'm going to kick your ass!" Naruto swore, his eyes wild and almost senseless, his grin feral and full of sharp, gleaming incisors. He ran forward, creating seven kage bunshin. He jumped in the air, clearing the distance between them and descended on Hidan.

"Bring it, little worm! Jashin-sama will feast upon your miserable soul, you heretic asshat!" Hidan shouted. He threw his scythe out, mowing through several kage bunshin. Four survived to land and swarmed towards him.

Naruto himself landed and held out his hand, charging a rasengan with the help of one more clone. He could do them one-handed since improving his chakra control with Hibari-sensei, but it still went faster with two pairs of hands. Done: the swirling, crackling blue energy clicked into place, his fingers casting shadows across the forests floor. His clone ran forward the bloody, still dribbling man, taking the rasengan in his right hand, and he run after it.

Hidan swore, swinging his scythe and shearing through yet another clone. That annoying, defiling, soon-to-be-hoarse-with-screaming voice shouted RASENGAN! and Hidan looked up, as a particularly pissed-looking Naruto lunged forward, holding a whirling blue sphere in front of him.

"Oh shit," Hidan said and then the sphere struck him right in the middle of his body. It hit; he roared in pain as it began to tear away at his body. It was agony such as he had rarely felt. It cleared his mind like a flash of light, making everything sharp and clear and orderly. It was so invigorating!

Hidan struggled, kicking his legs and retreating a few more steps.

"Such pain!" he shouted "Jashin-sama look at this suffering!"

This gave even Naruto a pause. He halted mid-step and stared at the man as the second wave of ink-monkeys attacked the Akatsuki agent who despite his grievous wound batted them away into nothingness like they were nothing from begin with. There was a gaping hole in Hidan's stomach, exposed organs bleeding and broken ribs sticking out. It looked like someone had just scooped out his flesh with an ice cream scoop and a distant niggle of queasiness was starting to work its way through the haze in Naruto's mind.

"All this suffering!" Hidan crowed like he had just won a prize. "It is all for you, Jashin-sama!"

He sneered as he looked at Narutos before stepping forward. He stopped, and smiled. Naruto had seen bitter smiles and belittling smiles and despising smiles and gloating smiles, but never a smile quite like that before.

"Witness this miracle!" Then Hidan licked to blood off the upper blade of the scythe, and his body rippled, transforming as turned into something that looked a little like war-painting and a lot like a skeleton. A circle appeared on the ground around him like reverse drying where something wet appeared instead of disappeared.

"Share my suffering, worm!" He crowed, slamming the sharp pike at the top of his scythe into his open wound, pushing it through and twisting.

Raw red and flesh-coloured pain exploded in Naruto's stomach and his legs fell from under him, but he barely noticed his knees hitting the ground. His clothes soaked through with blood immediately. Pain pulsed through his body with every heartbeat and blood rose into his mouth. He inhaled it and it burned in his throat as he started to hack it off his windpipe. And Hidan stood above this spectacle, laughing maniacally. His voice echoed hollow in Naruto's head and he gritted his teeth. He had to think of Fū-chan and Kakashi-sensei and everyone. This wasn't a good moment to faint.

"I'll never give up," Naruto said, forcing himself to stand. "That's my ninja way. Even if you cut off my arms and legs, I'm not gonna let you hurt anyone." He stumbled forward his left hand pressed against his stomach wound. It was already healing, but Hidan pointed his scythe towards his stomach again, licking his lips. And then they were surrounded by many men and a green-topped blur hit Hidan from behind. The force of it knocked Naruto on his knees again, but he saw how Hidan went flying, out of the circle, and Fū-chan snarled above the man and the air was filled with icy cold water.

* * *

Ordering Hyūga Neji to care for the wounded Anbu woman and Sai, Tsunade charged towards her honorary godson, her heart stuck in her throat, only to be foiled by certain Uchiha Itachi. She dodged an almost lazy fire jutsu, considerably less lazy swing of the missing nin's katana and attacked the man in turn, aiming a punch that would have made his chest cavity cave in and missed. They circled each other like big cats, Tsunade's rage sizzling between them like her lightning jutsu.

"You unholy bastard of an odd-toed ungulate and a psychopath rattlesnake! Bloodsucking gallows-fodder! Catch an inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract and die of diarrheal!" she screamed and charged at him. Many, many years wasted in sake and gambling had gained her little but debts and regrets, but this was at least something; not having to lower herself to unimaginative four letter words. "Traitorous slime mould! Politician!"

"Politician? There is no need to be uncivilized, Senju-san," the spawn of a syphilic swine clicked his tongue, raising an eyebrow that just screamed of inflated sense of superiority.

Of all the Sannin Senju Tsunade was the worst off against someone like Uchiha Itachi, not because she was any weaker than the others, but simply because her close range taijutsu wasn't well matched against a middle to long range fighter like the Uchiha and her genjutsu techniques were no match to the ex-Anbu genjutsu specialist. Even then, she was a Sannin, she knew better than anyone else alive just how many ways human body could be taken apart and above all she had what all too many ninja lacked those days of mass-destruction jutsu melee: she had a good head on her shoulders.

There were two types of anger. The hot anger was the easy type, the one all people were born with. It was fire and red haze and the metallic taste of destruction on tongue. The cold anger was something that needed to be learned and not all ever managed. It was cold and scratchy comfort that Tsunade had clutched it against her chest for a long time, it was bitterness and calculation and patience. It could become a habit oh so easily once learned and for the longest time Tsunade had found herself unable to let go, hurting herself and her friends once she had run out of enemies. Naruto-kun had been the one to thaw her and for his sake she called upon that anger again, forced her temper to cool. Carefully keeping her eyes below the dark-haired man's chin she approached him more carefully now, closing the distance in an almost nonchalant way.

"You have already lost, Uchiha," she taunted the man. "How do they put it in Anbu again? Fulfil the mission at any cost? A genin foiled your mission, your target has been freed and now this is just a waiting game; the Takigakure forces will be here any second. But this isn't your first spectacular failure, is it?" She counted the inches, now allowing her target to close the gap. Haste rang alarm-loud in her ears, but she forced herself to concentrate. Many civilians didn't quite consider the iryō-nin to be real ninja, but their peers treated them with considerably more respect. They were killers first and healers second, after all, but even their comrades tended to forget there was more to the medical profession than the body. Tsunade was also an expert in the field of psychological profiling.

"Your perfect control is what you take most pride in, isn't it? No mission too difficult, no demand impossible to meet, yet you dropped the ball so completely your only way out was a mass murder of your own family. You wished to test your limits? You were a bloody failure a as son, a brother and a shinobi of Konoha and you failed subtlety forever, but above all you fail at knowing yourself, forced to rely on such a shameful crutch to reassure yourself of your own worth. What is that Tsukiyomi of yours but overcompensation for your failure to control even your own self?"

The Uchiha's mouth twitched into a momentary snarl of fury and that was when Tsunade attacked, the moment between one second and the other when the turncoat's control went the way of her words. Her lighting jutsu flared into burning white life at the tips of her fingers, not aimed to the spine, to disable, but to the hear, to straight kill.

Ventricular fibrillation: a condition in which there is uncoordinated contraction of the cardiac muscle of the ventricles in the heart, a cause of cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death.

A hulking blue body was thrust between them, and maybe Tsunade would have been the one to end the legend of Uchiha Itachi or maybe she wouldn't have, but now they would never find out for Hoshigaki Kisame too the current to his right side, howling in sudden, sharp pain.

A dirty white clay something that slightly resembled a giant amoeba clung to the shark man's face like a leech. Hibari-san jumped forward and immediately followed with a lunge, then pulled the rear leg up into forward recovery, but she was foiled when Hoshigaki-san parried her thrust blindly while tearing into the clay creature with his left hand. But his massive sword wasn't meant to be handled single-handedly and Hibari-san quickly forced him to retreat, aided by Kakashi-san attacking the Akatsuki shinobi from behind.

Uchiha and Tsunade locked eyes, cold fury to match cold fury, and there was an acknowledgement and reluctant respect. Steel clang against steel and the chirping of birds filled her ears. Somewhere far to her left she could hear Naruto's roar and her anger was getting hot around the edges at an alarming rate, but this fight was already decided and they both knew it.

"It seems that it would be prudent to retreat now, Kisame-san," the Uchiha intoned coldly. In a flicker they were both gone and the next moment the clearing was filled with men and women in black and green, wearing the hitai-ite with the two lines that formed a stylized waterfall.

* * *

Hyūga Neji wasn't familiar with chakra healing techniques, but like all well-rounded shinobi he had learned basic healing – it is a foolish man who beats his enemy in a battle and then dies of infected wounds because he never learned to dress them properly. He didn't waste much time cleaning Sai-san and Tomiko-san's wounds, only checked that they weren't in danger of bleeding out and moved Tomiko-san on her side so she wouldn't choke on her tongue. The battle was still going on after all.

"Go help Naruto, Oni-eyes," Sai-san commanded him and Neji could feel the corner of his left eye twitch. But the order had merit, as much as Neji hated to obey it; Tsunade-sama had the situation with the traitorous Uchiha under control while Kakashi-san and Okubo-san were easily holding their own against the blue-skinned man. While Uzumaki-san was facing an enraged, demented Jashin-worshipper whom he had just compared to Uchiha and whose god he had just compared to a bunny. Neji run like the hounds of the underworld had been at his heels.

He had already activated his Byakygan, but a blind man could have found Uzumaki-san. He was still running towards the fight, and it was such a small distance yet it seemed to take him forever as Uzumaki-san fell on his knees. But Neji wasn't the only one approaching the fight of the Konoha genin and the Akatsuki missing nin. The green-haired Takigakure jinchūriki, Nakamura Fū, shunsined behind Hidan, along with seven jōnin, and knocked Hidan off his circle, making Uzumaki-san topple over in the process, fine, red binds of chakra between him and Hidan snapping like hair.

Byakugan was no Sharingan, but Neji was very obsevant and he could see with startling clarity as Nakamura-san's hands flashed through with a jutsu, the flicking of nail polish on her nails distracting Neji just enough that he couldn't make out what kind of jutsu it was before the air was filled with icy droplets. It was water and it was liquid in air, but whenever it touched something, be that Hidan, tree or ground, the drops instantly turned into ice; supercooled water. Hidan was quickly covered in a layer of ice the cracked at his joints when he moved, attacking Nakamura-san, but Uzumaki-san was shrouded by a cloud of white mist as the ice on him vaporized.

Nakamura-san was fighting Hidan now, with Uzumaki-san as back-up, and the Taki shonobi were just stannding there. To the men's credit they seemed to be searching for an opening that wouldn't leave either of the jinchūriki in the line of fire, but their inefficiency was beginning to annoy Neji. He performed shunshin, appearing on Hidan's left side the second after Uzumaki-san left the spot and the scythe had swung out of the way.

Hidan of Akatsuki may have been stronger, crueller, in possession of a devastating technique and bearing far greater chakra reserves, but he had already lost lot of blood and spent much of his chakra. He also wasn't smarter than Neji and certainly he hadn't honed and honed his taijutsu into such perfection that the Konoha genin's was. Neji quickly, effortlessly, flawlessly struck the swinging scythe to the side with a Kaiten to the blunt side of its blade and his arm blurred like a striking viper when he gave the black and bone white man one gentle touch to the temple, channelling chakra through his fingers. The missing nin's whole body spasmed once and fell to the ground.

"You might want to request more competent back-up the next time, Nakamura-san, as the ones provided to you are obviously sub par," he sated, making the men grit their teeth and glare at his back. He kept an eye on them in case they might want to stike him, but that didn't happen. The angry expressions melted into surprise when Hidan stayed down.

It was an odd scene after that. Uzumaki-san, bloody, resolute and unyielding, stared at the crumpled form of the man lying on the grass. A green-haired girl, less bloody and ragged yet appearing to be in more pain, was leaning her hands on her knees and gasping great gulps of breath, staring at the missing nin. There were eleven men around them, all rooted to the ground and staring Hidan, him and Hidan in an endless circle, like they couldn't quite believe their eyes.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Nakamura-san said. And the broken body at Neji's feet began to cackle madly.

"You fuckers think this will stop me? I will give you all to Jashin-sama!" he shouted. Neji could barely believe it. After his strike nothing should be left of the man's brain but mush and yet he lived. Yet he spoke. He even tried to move, but could only twitch on the ground.

"You are gonna die," Uzumaki-san declared and dropped on his knees next to the man. The red glow of Kyūbi's chakra had already diminished into a barely visible – by normal eyes, Neji still felt like he was looking straight into the sun when he watched Naruto and he couldn't not watch with his Byakugan active – aura, but now it flared again and the blond jinchūriki pushed his balled fists against Hidan's back between his shoulder blades.

His chakra wasn't fire, but it was so concentrated and corroding it might as well have been. It sank into the madly laughing man's body like water into sand, making the body spasm wildly, but the man's frankly creepy delight at his predicament didn't wane any.

"I'm immortal, you fools. It doesn't matter what you do, I won't die," he gloated and took a sharp breath as yet another wave of red washed through him. That was when Nakamura-san stepped forward, mouth thinned into a grim line.

"Others have claimed that before. It's all a matter of degree," she said with cold voice, but the look she gave Uzumaki-san was very warm – an obviously made her compatriots uneasy. "Do you mind me butting in, big brother?" she asked. Maybe they had a reason to be nervous; Neji knew exactly how contagious the hyper-positive blond shinobi was and he doubted Takigakure was ready for him. People usually weren't.

"Not at all, Fū-chan," Uzumaki-san said and moved backwards, still in a crouch. Nakamura-san stood above Hidan like a spectre of death.

"We Jinchūriki must have each other's backs in this hostile world, but we will prevail," she declared and then her hands flashed through a complicated set of hand signs.

At first it didn't seem like much. Blue blobs of water condensed in the air around the cloud-cloaked man and fell on the messy, upturned ground with quiet splats. Then more and more of those appeared, quicker and quicker and now Hidan stopped laughing in favour of groaning. That was when Neji realised that those blobs of water were being condensed from the Akatsuki nin's body, remembered a jutsu he had seen a Kumogakure kunoichi use once when their clients' interests had come to conflict and their teams had come to blows, one that had ripped all water from the plants in a garden, leaving brown, fragile leaves and bare stalks that had crunched into dust under their feet. Hidan's skin was darkening and wrinkling, resembling an overripe apple.

"Fifty seven percents of an adult's body is water," Nakamura-san said. Neji was looking at the writhing man who, unbelievably, was moving more than he had just a few minutes ago. How could he regenerate like that? The average human brain was seventy seven percents water and Nakamura-san was sucking it out of the man the best she could, in addition to the damage Neji had done before. He should have been a vegetable by now.

But the man's chakra pathway was fluctuating wildly, It pulsed bright and dim, twisted like trying to escape from the confines of the body, and there was one place, one place where Neji could see what resembled a crack on ice or glass, spreading slowly. Ironically, it was at the back of the man's neck above the third thoracic vertebra; Byakugan's blind spot. It wasn't a tenketsu point, but it was a weak point and he struck it. And so it was over. The chakra pathways dimmed into nothingness and Hidan of Akatsuki twitched one last time, then laid still. His heart wasn't beating anymore.

"Who gets the credit for the kill?" one of the Taki shinobi asked with rather unsteady voice.

"Who cares?" Uzumaki-san asked. "It was a joint effort." And he jumped up to catch Nakamura-san who fell into his arms in dead faint, all of her power spent.

And Uzumaki-san carried Nakamura-san to Tsunade-sama who complained about reckless use of chakra when already injured, but healed her. Uzumaki-san insisted on cooking ramen for Nakamura-san, and Tsunade-sama was politely but firmly _invited_ to the village to answer some questions, along with Okubo-san and Kakashi-san. Neji was almost sure the only reason they weren't all invited was because they didn't want Uzumaki-san inside their walls and preferred to keep injured and vulnerable people he valued near him as a reminder of how futile rash actions would be now. Uzumaki-san's Root comrades were witnessing the unfolding events with much incredulity, the Taki shinobi left to guard them with even more incredulity.

* * *

And somewhere behind them, left alone under great magnolia trees, the body of a man who had claimed immortality laid. His heart beat and a dim spark of chakra was ignited deep within him. Jashin still had use for his most devoted worshipper.

* * *

Day 16/2, suborn count 3.

Recorded by the surveillance seal: Akatsuki was defeated. Nakamura Fū was rescued. Everybody kicked ass.

* * *

AN: Tsunade based her analysis on faulty information, but the conclusions she draw from it were coincidentally accurate. Itachi had no control over the situation between the Uchiha and the rest of the village, whatever the exact details may have been (I'm not just taking Madara's word without some other backing) and his failure resulted in having to sacrifice his family. Ouch, Tsunade.

Do you wonder what happened with Sasuke & co in Konoha? Don't worry, it will be revealed.


	14. Days 1618: Instant unreality

**Days 16-18: Instant unreality, only add water**

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

* * *

It was a nice day. The weather was great, sunny with just enough breeze to not be too hot. The forest clearing they were having a make-friends picnic at was great too, not as epic as the forest surrounding Konoha, but a lot more relaxing with less heavy canopy, golden light everywhere, soft grass and dry moss to sit on and nothing that tried to kill them. Sure, the place was a little torn up, the grass had been upturned here and there and the occasional sapling cut down and then there was the smell of blood lingering in the air, but it was the second most relaxing former battle site Naruto had ever been at – the Great Naruto Bridge too the first place and it wasn't just because it carried his name. Really.

Naruto had made a fire and he was cooking his whole emergency ramen supply over it. Fū-chan hadn't ever eaten ramen before because her caretaker said a woman was supposed to cook from the scratch and her sensei said ramen wasn't nutritious enough, which had shocked him greatly. What kind of barbaric place was this? He had to rectify the situation immediately!

"You have a strong, distinct personality. How did you get it?" Fū-chan asked him.

"Huh, I didn't get it. I was born with it?" Being born with it was one way to get it, but he wasn't going to nitpick.

They were sitting around the fire, Fū-chan on his left side and Sai on his right. The Taki shinobi were sitting several steps behind Fū-chan, a glaring wall of black and green and earthly brown tones, and Naruto's friends were sitting on the opposite side behind Sai's back, man-Fū and Tomiko-chan who looked kind of out of it resting and trying to not aggravate their injuries and Neji-san, looking back at the Taki shinobi with haughty white eyes. He was sitting so his back wasn't turned on anyone except that one guy in the trees. Naruto bet he had been embarrassed when he had waved at him.

Bored-looking Kakashi-sensei – Naruto might have even believed it if the man hadn't hugged him so hard his ribs had shifted – and Hibari-sensei had left with Tsunade-baachan to the village and they were left alone.

(In fact there was one more player, hidden and busy in the woods, but Naruto didn't know everything. His Kyūbi-senses might have been tingling had it been anyone else.)

"Do you think it matters if a person isn't born with a personality? I have none," Fū-chan said sadly and looked down, scuffing the dirt with her sandal.

"Of course you have a personality! Everybody does! What's your favourite food?" Naruto asked, fuming inside. Why had they all be so messed up one way or another. He didn't care much for himself, he was strong and he had friends now and Konoha had finally acknowledged him, except for a few old geezers, but it wasn't like he wanted to please old geezers in the first place, only the cool old people like the Sandaime, so that worked out well. But Fū-chan was a different matter!

"Does green tea ice cream count as food?" she asked. Naruto whooped with joy and hit the air with his fist, making her sit straighter in start and the other Taki shinobi reach for their weapons. What did they think he was gonna do, anyway?

"That counts. If you had to be a tree what kind of tree would you be?" he continued. There had been small conversations around them before, short and kind of awkward, but now these had been silenced as well. He could feel everyone's eyes on them, but they mostly weren't bad kind of eyes. He could tell when someone was giving him the hairy eyeball and this was more the way people looked at him when he told them of the Great God Ramen.

"… I find red maple beautiful?" Fū-chan answered after a while. She swayed her head from side to side with movements like a snake's when she was thinking hard, he noticed.

"I'm a blueberry tree cause they are so bright and evergreen and they have both flowers and berries. What kind of person did you want to become when you were a kid?" he asked. Her head swayed, swayed and she was still looking down, but peeking at him from under her eyelashes. "Iruka-sensei said that I was going to be a knock-about clown, but I wanted to become notorious. I didn't really know what notorious meant back then, though," he helped a little.

"When I was younger, it snowed in Taki. It doesn't usually snow this far south," she begun with a small voice, like she wasn't speaking to him at all. Naruto remembered that winter, he had started a snowball fight with Sasuke-teme and they had both been late to the Academy.

"I was walking to the mission office and there were little children making a snowman on the street. First there came this older man who helped them make a bigger snowball. When I walked back from the office he had gone and a retired kunoichi was helping the children to lift another on top of the first one. They knew that the children could make a bigger snowman with their help so they lent a hand. I wanted to become an adult like that."

"That's a really nice dream. I bet you liked those crummy D-rank where you were made to babysit," he guessed.

"I didn't do D-rank missions. I was trained to start at C-rank. I would have liked to watch over children, but I doubt they would have let me."

"What? That's wrong, you were entitled to those! Maybe you should demand them now. Have a sit-out strike on the mission office desk until they give you one." He would have exchanged his own D-ranks with Fū-chan any day. Went to show world wasn't fair at all.

Now the Taki shinobi were looking at him like Iruka-sensei had when Naruto had superglued the Academy's blunted kunai to the ceiling. One of them made a sound deep in his throat, a tall, lanky man with grey in his hair and a burnt scar on his forehead, but before he could really talk Fū-chan made a strangled noise. She bent over like a pocket knife and her shoulders were shaking. At first Naruto was afraid she was going to cry – he hadn't wanted to make her cry – and then she burst out laughing. It wasn't a restrained chuckle, either, or a girly giggle. Fū-chan snickered, then guffawed and she kept laughing until tears were streaming down her cheeks and she held her sides like they ached and her face was bright red.

"AH, I-ahahah, I would love to see Oshiro-san's face!" she managed between chuckles. It was a nice sort of laugh that made Naruto grin like a loony too. See, he wanted to say, it isn't so hard, but Sai tugged his sleeve.

"I think you should save your ramen now," he said. Naruto whipped his face around to look at the pot which was just about to boil over and yelped, taking it off the fire.

"See, you are tea ice cream person and red maple person and likes-pretty-things person and likes-kids-person and doesn't-like-Oshiro person. And I bet you are gonna like ramen too." He gave her a bigger portion than to himself. He felt very virtuous.

"Cease your attempt at convincing her to desert immediately!" a man's voice commanded. It was the one with the burnt scar and he was pointing at him with his index finger, gnashing his teeth. Fū-chan's shoulders hunched just a little and Naruto felt his lips baring his teeth.

"Hey, where do you get off accusing other people of being traitors? Fū-chan's nice! She wouldn't! I bet you are this Oshiro-jerk," he accused him, pointing right back. The man seemed taken aback by his words and so did the other Taki shinobi. Naruto didn't really get why, his friends just shook their heads and smiled.

"I believe he was accusing you of being treacherous, not Nakamura-san," Neji-san said in that dignified Hyūga kind of way, sitting ramrod straight and poker face firmly in place.

"Oh, that's okay, then." A beat. "Wait, that's not okay at all!"

* * *

The man known as Yamato had finished sealing the falling Akatsuki agent's crumpled body to a scroll, very carefully so he didn't mess the already much suffered body up any more – you had to be careful with organic materials. As a member of the ANBU, he was highly proficient in multiple areas of shinobi combat, including tracking and trapping – and disposing of the bodies of dangerous enemies. He had waited in the sidelines during the fight, ready to join the melee if necessary, but preferring to prevent the Taki shinobi from finding out their full numbers if at all possible.

He found this a bit distasteful, to tell the truth. Shortly after his birth, Yamato had been abducted by the infamous Orochimaru and become one of the sixty children who had been his Mokuton test subjects. They had been injected with the Shodaime Hokage's DNA in the hopes that they could replicate his ability to use Wood Release techniques, as well as the mysterious ability to control tailed beasts. Yamato had been the only survivor and to this day he found the words _scientific experimentation_ gave him hives, but orders were orders and Konoha's best was Konoha's best. At least this man wasn't alive.

Yamato was also fleeing from three Takigakure ANBU, two men and a woman in long, swirling coats, across the forest floor and occasionally the canopy. He didn't dare to be overt in his use of Mokuton, he wasn't wearing his headband and he very much preferred not giving these people proof of his village of origin, but if a surprisingly study branch just happened to catch the coat occasionally and disrupt a jutsu in process, well, this was the only a smallish forest in this part of the Elemental Nations and these people were more used to the Taki plains.

The bad part, of course, was that he would have to dispatch these people before he left the forest, preferably without killing them as the situation was volatile enough already. Danzō and his ambitions be damned, this was a mess and a half. A plan was beginning to form in his mind and to win himself some more time he turned slightly towards north-east while making sure a vine of poison ivy found its way under collar of the tiny man whose poison shuriken had nicked him. He was resistant to the poison, but it was still going to make him sick, nausea already swirling in his throat, and if he couldn't do anything else he was going to give the accursed man a few broken bones and a Mokuton-enhanced rash.

He created quickly an illusion of swirling leaves, making it seem like he had shunshined away, readying for a strike. That was when the burst of chakra from the scroll he was carrying exploded across his senses. It wasn't visible, not like Uzumaki-san's, but it still left him seeing white spots and only years and years of experience as one of the best allowed him to avoid running head-first into a tree.

There was a reason true Fūinjutsu masters were so rare and so revered, so feared a whole village would be destroyed out of sheer fright. In order to seal objects, living beings, chakra, along with a wide variety of other things within another object a person had to create a little pocket dimension in the space-time continuum. Great and terrible things could be done with seals. There were also so many things that could go wrong with that it would have been easier to list the things that couldn't. Simple storage scrolls came cheap and anyone could learn to draw the seals on those, if not understand them, but even those could turn into death traps if the seal was disturbed by a copious amount of foreign energy from inside.

Yamato threw the scroll away, coincidentally towards the Taki ANBU chasing him, and they scattered like leaves in the wind. The scroll was shining white like the sun, radiating heat like the sun, and Yamato didn't look at it when he tried to get as far away as possible, painfully aware he couldn't get far enough quick enough… And the white light dimmed just before a pink flash and it was all over.

Maybe it wasn't quite pink, closer to sickly magenta like rotting red fruit, but still definitely pinkish. Yamato dared to stop and look behind. The Taki ANBU were still standing there, a long ways to the other direction, staring at and empty circle in the forest. It wasn't a big circle, maybe a meter in radius, but its edge was sharp as though it had been cut to the forest floor with a blade razor sharp and there wasn't anything alive inside it. No even leftovers of life, corpses of saplings and bushes or brown, dead grass left, only clean, sterile earth that _ached_ when he reached towards it with his Mokuton. And no scroll.

Still…

"That was pretty harmless, considering." It could have blown up five square miles after all. He had heard that had happened once during the First Great Shinobi War.

And it had been pink.

There was no warning, of course, for ANBU weren't prone to such dramatics. His hands were already flicking and one of his pursuers, a woman with a bird mask of some sort sent a water jutsu after him, a dozen of razor-sharp water whips. Yamato simply shifted the liquid in the labyrinth of her ears a bit and the woman dropped like a rock, her up and down no longer up and down. But he was sweating like a pig and trembling slightly from the poison and the chase was on again, two very angry men after him, and he hadn't even gotten the scroll for his troubles. Yamato couldn't help but think how that had not been his day.

* * *

The woman who was called Tomiko was leaning against a tree, regulating her breath to battle the nausea the concussion caused her. Maybe it was the concussion that clouded her mind so, though she didn't really believe it, that this scene seemed almost normal and genuinely domestic. Naruto-san and Nakamura-san eating ramen and complaining about inconsequential things and ignoring the big, obvious issues their new-found friendship would create. Her compatriot was sitting next to him, looking at Naruto-san with an expression bordering wondrous, if you knew how to read the man. Nothing made much sense anymore, in a world where Senju Tsunade-sama herself had bothered to mount a rescue, the assassin-in-training had somehow managed to overlook the fact he had been supposed to assassinate someone and…

Tomiko recalled a joke from before, well, _before_, that she hadn't thought of for the longest time, no time for such frivolous pursuits as sense of humor. Taijutsu screws with your body. Genjutsu screws with your mind. Ninjutsu screws with the reality.

"Carnations are easy to grow. They like full sun and a rich, well drained soil. Just water them during dry periods, once or twice per week or so," Naruto-san babbled. So they had graduated from favourite colours (orange and green respectively) to hobbies now? All this picture lacked was a pinky promise.

Maybe it was the concussion, maybe it was Naruto-san, maybe she was just worn threadbare, but Tomiko threw her head back, closed her eyes and with the tiniest of whimpers surrendered.

_Uzumaki Naruto screws with the reality._

It felt good, so good that she was scared, for no ninja could go into a battle remembering how good it was to let go, surely. Heavy warmth spread into her limbs and she dimly remembered this was what being drunk had felt once, when she had sneaked out with Kushina and Yūgao long, long time ago. She also felt naked, like all her clothes had instantly vanished, and shamed somehow, like she had been caught at, at betraying someone. She felt like an onion which had been peeled layer by layer until nothing was left. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Of course she did neither. Years and years of suppressing all emotions and refusing to show those few she couldn't entirely push back and forget kept her breathing regulated and her face immovable like stone. She could feel Fū-san's eyes and she refused to meet them. This was much too public. She had to get Naruto away from these people, alone. She had her end of their deal to keep.

Tsunade-sama returned sooner than Tomiko had thought she might. One moment it was simply them and the Taki ninja in the clearing, the next Tsunade-sama, Hatake-san and Okubo-san were standing in the middle of it, strolling towards the fire like they had been standing there the whole time, their Taki escorts behind them. She made a note to keep her wits better the next time she received a concussion and stood up.

"We may leave now. The situation had been cleared up. Nakamura-san, your Kage wishes for your presence," she said to the green-haired girl who gave Naruto-san a longing look and gripped his wrist. She had refused summons? Tomiko hadn't been awake for that, but if it was true then Naruto had to have made even greater impression than she had thought.

"Is this farewell, then, brother?" the jinchūriki asked, her whole body screaming misery, and every Taki shinobi twitched. Some more overtly, some barely moved a muscle, but they were all nervous, several knuckles turning pale. Of course Naruto ignored this blithely, taking Nakamura-san's buth hands in his own.

"No, it's just a little goodbye. We need to visit Gaara together and all," he said, causing a new twitch.

Tomiko hadn't ever considered this before, but maybe they were right to be nervous. The jinchūriki had more in common with each other than the rest of their villages, more often than not were prejudiced against, and weapons having loyalties for one another could cause quite sticky situations. If Naruto was the type to take advantage, that was. Because Nakamura-san wasn't independent enough to take advantage of it herself.

After several more hugs and promises to write, they left the battlefield behind. Tomiko could feel his back and neck itching with the eyes of the men and women watching them leave and she was tense, ready to spring at half a moment's notice, but nothing happened. They were followed, of course, kept an eye on, but she hadn't expected otherwise. At first Naruto kept waving at their shadows, but soon he was grabbed forst by Tsunade-sama, who hit him over the head and demanded to know what he had thought he was doing, letting himself be taken like that, and checked more surreptitiously by Hatake-san, and he forgot all about the men, complaining about the rought treatment and defending his new friends – at this point Tsunade-sama gave her a Look that promised an inquiry later – and chattering happily about everything and nothing, bouncing.

Naruto, bouncing in a way no ninja was ever meant to bounce in eyesore-bright orange, was a striking sight in a not very graceful way, but the same way an explosive note was striking; he drew the eye because you were afraid to look away. Kami-sama knew what he would do, try to dress _you_ in orange or climb into a tree and throw acorns at you – Hatake-san hadn't been very amused – or flip around your entire world view. There was another reason Tomiko was watching him so closely, though. She wanted to have a few minutes alone with him.

The chance came after they had left the forest and travelled across the rice plains again. Her experienced eye categorized the possible threats as they walked on the grey, dusty road – possible venomous snakes hiding among the plant matter cluttered across the road, enemy ninja lying in waiting among the endless, bright green rows of rice, sparing a lingering glance to three distant scarecrows to ensure they really were just that – as they arrived to cross-roads they had run by in haste earlier that day. There were footprints of two on the road crossing theirs among many others, but what set these apart was the kind of sandal they had come from. There was a world of difference between the flappy straw sandals of rice farmers and the shinobi sandals designed for the ability to absorb impact, support the ankles through absurd acrobatics and increase running efficiency. But there were differences between the sandals of different villages as well and these tracks resembled more Konoha sandals than those of the Taki shinobi.

"This might be completely innocent, and even if it isn't they most likely are nowhere near anymore," said Hatake-san. Just the fact there were any tracks at all for them to find argued for that. "But we should check just to be safe." They separated into two groups and Tomiko made sure she was in Naruto's. She didn't manage to be quite as stealthy as she would have liked, if the look Tsunade-sama gave her and Hatake-san's wink were any indication, but they were left behind to keep watch over nothing, left alone. At least apparently, she was quite sure Hyūga-san had been ordered to watch them.

The warm, scary feeling of being bared for the whole world to see had abated, leaving her grasp at leftover feelings like the words of a mostly forgotten childhood song. She was cam and collected when she called Kushina's son's name.

"Naruto-san, I concede our bet. The person I was talking of is Uzuki Yūgao, originally Uzumaki Yūgao, a cousin of your late mother; their fathers were half-brothers. We were all from the village of Uzushiogakure that is no more." That was good, to the point and conclusive. "My name, it used to be Tenko." She hadn't thought of Tenko for a long, long time.

Naruto's face lit up like the sun. She wondered what it must be like, to be so uncomplicatedly happy.

"Tenko-chan? That's beautiful, why did you change it? Did you know my mom? Were you friends? What is Yūgao-san like? What happened to Uzushiogakure? Why Yūgao-san changed her name?" Naruto fired questions until Tomiko – for she had great difficulties shedding the name that had made her anew – made the ANBU hand sign for quiet and it, much to her surprise, worked. She would have to remember this.

"I was a friend of your mother's, yes. Also a distant relative, but only through marriage. We share not a drop of blood between us," she pointed out, but Naruto's eyes widened and a happier – for it had been so happy from begin with – grin split his face as he jumped and clung to Tomiko's neck like a leech. She swayed under the impact, trying to come up with something to say and failed. I'm happy too sounded a bit trite in her ears, but enthusiasm wasn't for her. She could and often had faked it, but that would be even worse.

"Who cares about blood, who did you marry, Tenko-chan? Are you still married?" Naruto asked, turning his head like expecting a surprise husband to jump from behind the nearest shrub.

"My cousin married another cousin of your mother's," she answered in as dignified manner as she could with an orange shinobi clinging to her neck, feet dangling off the ground. It had been a first cousin of hers and a second cousin twice removed of Kushina's if she remembered right, but she didn't believe he would care of that detail. She wondered where she should keep her hands.

"So you are my cousin too!" Naruto declared. Again Tomiko had nothing to say so to avoid potentially uncomfortable silence she pushed him back to the ground and returned to the original questions.

"I don't know what Yūgao is like nowadays for I haven't had a conversation with her for seven years. She used to be kind and quiet, but she could also carry a grudge stubbornly. Uzushiogakure was destroyed during the Second Great Shinobi War. The clan Uzumaki, the most renown of the village's ninja clans, was very knowledgeable of fūinjutsu. So much it earned them renown and fear worldwide, so much it led to their destruction."

"Your destruction. You are from there too," Naruto complained, frowning. She closed her eyes in sudden ghost pain, more than half forgotten already.

"I know." Jōnouchi Tenko, she tasted the name in her mind, kunoichi from Uzushiogakure. It didn't feel very real.

Her emotions were distant, frayed like she was, all she had once felt for the village of her birth and Kushina expertly numbed. And still she prayed Naruto wouldn't ask again why Yūgao had changed her name. It was a vain hope, that he wouldn't realize, but she still didn't want to be the one to voice it.

* * *

It was close to the nightly hours when they reached the gates of Konoha the second day after leaving Takigakure's protected zone. The trees seemed to have a tint of red and orange in the rays of setting sun like it was an autumn already and the Hokage monument, what his face would one day grace, _believe it_, towered over the quieting village.

"Yeah, it's good to be home!" Naruto shouted and stretched his muscles, popping his shoulders. "Do we have time to have ramen before we go to the base?" he asked Hibari-sensei, making his best puppy-dog eyes, ready to plead and whine until she relented. But Hibari-sensei stopped in her tracks and frowned, and so did everyone else.

"Naruto-kun, we aren't going to the base. You are going to your home. Haven't you been listening at all?" she asked. He pondered that for a while. They had been talking about how the Evil Overlord Danzō had gotten his just desserts, but they hadn't said anything about not letting him complete his training.

The main Gate marked the entrance to Konoha. They were marked with a giant character for "Fire", red against green and brick red wood of the gates and the great wall. Once the customer had been guided through the maze of little paths and roads the final stretch of it was wide and well-kept, modern, and the village beyond the gates seemed so open and inviting. The great gates were only ever closed during war or when the Hokage declared martial law, but they were still far from vulnerable and Hibari-sensei had told Naruto that the two chûnin one could see at the gates were only there for the sake of appearances. He turned his head, trying to see the mystery guards, but they were better at hiding than the Taki shinobi had been.

"But it was the best training I ever got! I learned more about chakra control than in my whole time in the Academy and Team Seven and Hibari-sensei has wicked jutsu, and yeah, Danzō was a dick, but he is gone now. Can't I just complete my training with her? And Sai needs training too!" He argued in distracted manner. He pointed at his partner in not-crime who looked absurdly pleased to be dragged into the argument. People usually just preferred to back away.

"You have the capacity to be happy anywhere, don't you," Tsunade-baachan muttered and then grumbled something about evil mind control powers. Naruto kind of hoped he had those, it would be so cool. He could use them on Kyūbi and make it cough more chakra or something and not go on gloomily and doomily about how he was an insect and stuff. But he could be generous about it; he had kicked S-class missing-nin ass and that was too cool for words. One step closer to his ultimate goal, second to none!

"I would like to keep training with Naruto in whatever capacity training can be arranged," Sai said and gave Kakashi-sensei a meaningful look. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing the secrecy was over after all, now he could introduce Sai to everyone.

"I can't take a fourth student to train, it would mess up my training schedule," Kakashi-sensei protested, his eyes on his small, orange book as he walked past them towards the gates. Naruto glared daggers at his back.

"You have a schedule?" he challenged and then though something, genuinely bemused. "You have been training us? When?" Sai laughed. It sounded kind of creepy, but he was trying, honest, and it drowned Kakashi-sensei's yelp of protest.

The two chûnin, a red-headed Inuzuka with his black dog at is feet and a woman in too big green coat who smelled like kikai, bowed their heads respectively for Tsunade as the group walked in. Naruto inhaled deeply; it was good to be home. No other place smelled like Konoha, the right brands of sword oil and mink oil for leather and the delicious smells of street kitchens. He missed Fū-chan, though. It was nice to meet other people like him, and he hadn't even needed to give her The Kick of Good Sense to the behind. He hoped she managed to squeeze that babysitting mission out of her village administration.

"I'm gonna go meet with Sakura-chan and Sasuke first thing tomorrow, wanna come with me, Sai?" he asked, extending his hand.

"That reminds me, I must talk with my cousin. Though I doubt anything has happened at all; Hinata-hime is the sensible sort," Neji muttered under his breath.

* * *

Day 18/4, suborn count 4.

Recorded by the surveillance seal: Uzumaki family history. Everything is happily over?

* * *

AN: I bet you forgot Yamato was there at all! At least no one commented his absence…

And Neji? You wish!


	15. Epilogue: All that ends well

**Epilogue: All That Ends Well**

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

* * *

Sandaime Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Due to the importance of public appearance, as Hokage he couldn't break down in public. But his nerves had been strung high ever since he had sent Naruto to Root, it had gotten even worse after he had realized that maniac Danzō had sent the boy to assassinate the jinchūriki of village that was, if not exactly allied with Konoha then at least not an active enemy. When Naruto had bounced into his office like nothing had happened, talking a blue streak of Fū-chan and Hibari-sensei and Sai and the most awesome training ever it was all he could do to not cry out of sheer relief.

He had apologized. The Hokage didn't owe an apology to any of his shinobi, but Sarutobi had owed one to Naruto. True to precedent, Naruto had forgiven as easily as he breathed.

"So this is over, at last. And your report on Naruto's advancement is most satisfactory," he said and opened his eyes. Okubo Hibari stood in front of him. A lesser woman might have fidgeted or at least stood tense beforethe leader she had participated in criminal conspiracy against, but Okubo-san seemed calm, at peace with herself. She had the bearing of a woman who had accepted any consequences.

"He wasn't an easy student, but he was the most motivated I have ever taught," Okubo-san agreed. She squinted her eyes a bit in the bright light of setting sun hitting the tower's uppermost windows. They had been strategically placed so that the sun would shine in the eyes of the person standing in front of his desk both early morning and late evening.

"He seems to have reached adequate skill level that I might tell him of his father. Give him his true heritage," Sarutobi said and it was a test. Okubo-san hadn't so far volunteered any information on Naruto's parentage and he was quite sure Danzō hadn't shared such sensitive information with his underlings, but the portrait of the Yondaime was hanging on the wall of this very office and when Okubo-san first arrived it had caught her eye.

He remembered that look, her narrowed eyes and thin mouth. She had peered at it from behind the pile of papers she had carried, then looked at him and looked almost sheepish. He wasn't sure how that should be read, but he was certain she had figured it out. The resemblance wasn't exactly subtle.

"I'm sure Naruto-kun would be thrilled to learn of his father, but have you thought he might wish to keep the name Uzumaki even after his parentage becomes public knowledge one day?" Okubo-san challenged him.

"What makes you think so?" He could see Naruto running around Konoha and shouting the truth from the rooftops, finally vindicated.

"He has been belittled as Uzumaki all his life and he resolved to make that name known to all as the strongest shinobi of Konoha. He wants to be known by his own merits, make his own name. He would feel he was riding his father's coattails if he took the name Namikaze." Okubo-san said. A small movement in her hands caught Sarutobi's attention, the closing fingers not quite disguising the slightly opened mouths.

"I see." Okubo-san might be called something of an expert on father issues, but Sarutobi was still doubtful.

"Also, he has found family from the Uzumaki side and I think he would rather keep the name of the living than the dead. If you wish to please him, you could award them a clan status. I believe the laws state a family the Hokage regards suitable may be granted that status if it has at least three active ninja and at least one of them is a man," she suggested.

Sarutobi turned his head ever so slightly, looked past the woman in green jacket – the ANBU coat had been taken from her – and his eyes glued to a Christmas card on the wall. It was a cheap thing, made of red cardboard and he might not have saved it at all, let alone hang on his office's wall, had it not been from his son. They were so estranged these days, long hours kept and bitter words said that couldn't be taken back, and so the little thing was precious to him. In white and red ink, the card read Rikudō Sennin's words: Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. Here, Sarutobi suspected, was such a conspiracy going on. A conspiracy to give Naruto a family.

"Three active ninja?" he asked, already considering the paperwork he wouldn't mind over much this time.

"Naruto-kun claims Tenko-san as family through marriage… and that is his prerogative. I also believe Uzumaki Yūgao-san will be converted to his point of view before long." Okubo-san's mouth turned into a subdued, yet exalted line. A conspiracy of love indeed.

Sarutobi's face didn't reveal his feelings, but he was tempted to lay his head in his hands and groan. Jōnouchi Tenko, another of his ANBU involved with Root. She had defected literally the last moment, after the fight against Akatsuki and the last-minute salvage of Konoha's relations with Takigakure were already over. He wasn't entirely sure her change of heart could be trusted. But on the other hand she _was _Naruto's kin. Distant kin surely – Sarutobi knew his family tree –and not even blood, but he knew Naruto well enough that he also knew it didn't matter the slightest to the young boy. He had family now and he would never forgive Sarutobi if that family was handed over to Ibiki-san. The fact remained that if anyone was capable of converting enemies of state so casually it was Naruto. Had Danzō still been in a state where he might have benefited of it Sarutobi would have been tempted to lock him in a closet with Naruto, just for science's sake, to resolve that age-old problem.

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object?

"I will consider the matter. Now, regarding your participation in Root…"He gave Okubo-san time to get nervous, but she didn't bat an eye. Sarutobi was an old wolf (old fox being an unpopular phrase in Konoha these daysfor obvious reasons) and he had other ways to observe living beings than simply his eyes. Her heart didn't speed up, the barely perceptible flow of discreet lightning jutsu didn't show any changes in her skin conductivity. Was this faith in Naruto's protection or didn't she care any more?

"Taking your voluntary co-operation in revealing Danzō's schemes in consideration I have decided to be very lenient with you. You will not be court-martialed. But you have proven yourself unreliable as an ANBU and so you will never hold that position again in Konoha. Please send Jōnouchi Tenko-san in as you leave," he ordered. Now Okubo-san was clearly shaken, but she took a discreet calming breath, saluted him and walked briskly to the door.

"Tell me one more thing," he asked and Okubo-san obediently turned from the door to face him again. "Why weren't you afraid of death?"

"Naruto-kun wouldn't love and admire you so much if he for a second believed you might kill a previously brainwashed person," Okubo-san said simply. That comment cut like the sharpest wind jutsu, with so thin a blade the pain took seconds to register. Sarutobi was well aware he wasn't worthy of such trust.

He gestured for the woman to go without a further word and once the door was shut with a silent click he allowed himself to lean back in his chair and sigh. He had to think of the positives, he told himself. The operation itself had been success; they had taken Danzō and his old teammates by surprise and while this hurt it was necessary hurt, like removing bandage glued to the skin by dried blood. Koharu and Homura were under house arrest and Danzō – Sarutobi still wasn't completely certain what had happened to him was an accident, but he was going to let the matter slide without formal investigation. Naruto was back in good health and Tsunade wasn't going to geld him. All was well that ended well, even if the journey there was a bit… morally ambiguous.

So, Clan Uzumaki? He wouldn't even create a new clan, simply revive an old and prestigious one. Naruto had clearly proved himself worthy of that legacy, even if he didn't know enough of the family craft to seal a paper bag shut. Proud wasn't enough to describe Sarutobi's feelings when he read the report on Naruto Okubo-san had calmly provided on top of a very classified pile. And to think he had, with some help provided by Hyūga-san and Nakamura-san, killed Hidan of Akatsuki. The same boy who had passed the preliminaries of Chûnin exams by farting and the Academy graduation exam without knowing how to make a bunshin. This proved he had been right all along, all Naruto needed was for someone to give him a chance.

He would let Naruto decide what name he wished to go by, but he had a feeling Okubo-san had anticipated the boy's preference correctly. He waited for Jōnouchi-san to arrive, but when his door opened the one standing in the doorway was Yamato-san in full ANBU regalia. His hair was in wild disarray, there was a deep scratch in his mask and his jacket had reddish spots to it, like someone had tried to wash away blood stains without soap.

"What happened to you, Lynx?" he asked. Yamato-san's shoulders slumped.

"I blame Jashin," he said. "Pink!" he cried, shaking his head. Sarutobi was beginning to wonder if anyone had anything to report he wanted to hear this evening.

* * *

Hyūga Neji returned from the mission straight to his clan's compound. It was a beautiful, tranquil place, the main building surrounded by a big tsukiyama-style garden with several carp ponds and little streams, great stone lanterns placed near them. Green shrubs blocked the view from the surrounding smaller buildings and the main house, allowing an illusion of privacy – but in the Hyūga compound it was just that, an illusion. Neji had always felt very claustrophobic there and he was grateful for his sensei's somewhat insane training regime that allowed him to spend most of his time outside.

He was, technically speaking, supposed to check in with his uncle first once he returned from a mission, but Hiashi-sama had been quite a lot more relaxed lately and Neji decided to push the envelope a bit. He_was_ fairly sure Hinata-hime hadn't done anything stupid, but… He activated his Byakugan and allowed his gaze to sweep through the main house. Many in Konoha were in awe of this skill, envious, but while it was useful in battle mostly Neji found it, well, embarrassing. He saw his uncle sitting in a bathtub, having his shoulders massaged by, ahem, a female companion, he saw a very dignified Jōnin, a strict instructor of the children of the clan, posing in front of a mirror, making one grandiose pose after another and he really could have done without ever learning the cook sliced onions with kunai. He hoped direly it hadn't ever been used for anything but cooking. But he also saw Hinata-hime in the tea garden behind the house and headed there.

The tea garden was small, but showed good taste. Neji walked the stepping stones leading to the tea house. There was a small stone lantern in front of it, as well as a stone basin where guests would purify themselves before a ceremony. Hinata was sitting on its rim, with a book in hand she didn't appear to be reading at all. Neji's eyebrow was raised by the red hood she was wearing and that she was without her favorite jacket.

"I trust you have been well, Hinata-hime," he said formally, not yet comfortable with being familiar with his cousin after years of belittling and bullying her, despite knowing she might have preferred more affability.

Hinata-hime looked at him and blushed immediately beet red.

Hinata was sitting in a tea garden, minding her own business – and what business she had to mind! Privacy was very hypothetical concept in the Hyūga household and so she had a book as an excuse, but she couldn't really muster the calm of mind necessary to concentrate on it. Her mind dwelt on their ill-fated trip to the Hokage tower's cells and she felt like the world's biggest pushover. She had known it wasn't a good idea, but Sasuke-san had been so decisive and she had been so worried for Naruto-kun she had simply gone along with it anyway. To top the misery off, they had found out nothing new concerning Naruto-kun's whereabouts. So of course when she thought things couldn't get any worse Neji-niisan walked to her and asked: "I trust you have been well, Hinata-hime."

"I trust you," the words echoed in her ears, _I trust you_. And what Hinata couldn't help remembering…

_Sasuke-san marched to the door of the cell. Sakura-san bent down to frisk the keys from the fallen guard – an ANBU, Hinata could barely believe Kiba's off-the-wall plan had really allowed them to defeat an ANBU – and gave Sasuke-san the keys. He only grunted as a response and opened the door. It was a sturdy metal door, lavishly decorated by complicated seals barely visible in the dim light and Hinata had second thoughts as to whether or not opening it __was wise._

_She had seen Shimura Danzō often, though never spoken with the man, and she knew that while he was a fragile-looking old man, crippled bravely defending Konoha, the way he moved wasn't that of a harmless old man._

_The eyes of the Hyūga were very, very sharp._

"_Ah, may-maybe this isn't…" she tried to say, but the darkness around them swallowed her voice until it was barely more than the timid peep of a mouse. The lock let out a terrible screech and the hinge was even worse as Sasuke-san slammed the door open._

_The cell was small, six by six feet. The walls were bare and there was no furniture, only a mattress on the floor without any bedclothes. There was one light bulb in the ceiling, no lampshade at all, but behind a heavy metal grill. As the walls were chalked white the cell was actually quite bright. Much too bright to comfortably sleep in and Hinata was sure that was entirely intentional. The only spot of color in this sparseness was the man sitting on the mattress and raising one regal eyebrow, bruised and heavily bandaged, but resolute in demeanor_

"_I see I have visitors," the man said dryly as he rose on his feet. He winced in pain and it was real, but his muscles were tense in the way the preludes an attack. Hinata took a ready stance and calmed her breath; Naruto-kun was depending on her now. The door was open. There was nothing to do but to see this through._

"_Where. Is. Naruto?" Sasuke-san spat the words out. He was fairly simmering with rage. Hinata couldn't see his face, but as she discreetly activated her Byakugan, layering a genjutsu over herself just as Kurenai-sensei had taught her, she could see chakra spark at the bottom of his eye balls. He had activated his Sharingan. "Where did you send him to?"_

"_What have you done to him?" Sakura-san asked. Hinata winced and bit her lowed lip remembering what father had told her of dealing with the council members: one should never show how interested they were, that was only going to raise the price. She gave Sakura-san as __discreet a tug as she could and made a hand sign __for "silence" at such an angle that Shimura-san shouldn't be able to see it. Sakura-san paid her no attention._

"_How rebellious of you, barging in to the cell of our esteemed Hokage's prisoner," Shimura-san said. Butter wouldn't have melted in his mouth; Hinata wouldn't have been surprised if pearl fell from his lips. "So you wish to know where I sent our village's dirty little secret, dear children? I sent him to do the work he was born to do."_

"_Naruto isn't anyone's _dirty little secret! _He's a Konoha nin!" Kiba-kun shouted and Akamaru barked at his feet. They both bared their teeth, lips curling to reveal their gums. Like their dogs, the Inuzuka were loyal and fierce, yet gentle to their own. Kiba-kun had found out she loved Naruto-kun and he had promised to keep it a secret. He was the best friend Hinata had ever had._

"_Ah, but the secrets I could share with you, children of Konoha. __For example, young Sasuke…" Shimura-san begun and Hinata's heart jumped to her throat, beating like the wings of a little bird trying to escape. She didn't know how and she didn't know why, but she was absolutely, undeniably, completely sure that what Shimura-san was going to say could only lead to a catastrophe and she must stop him, in any way she could. But what could she do?_

_What would Naruto-kun do?_

_Shimura-san raised his hand, slowly, dramatically, and haste won now, the hare beat the tortoise. Quickly, efficiently, unnoticed by Kiba-kun and Sakura-san and Sasuke-san because she was standing behind them, unnoticed by Shimura-san who was looking Sasuke-san with hunger in his eyes, Hinata called genjutsu upon herself. She knew Naruto-kun better than anyone, so she believed, for she had spent countless hours following him from the shadows, watching, trying to gather her courage to talk with him. The body was easy; her face, her hair, the shape of her shoulders, the way the clothes hung from her body, flat, muscled chest, the way he stood, the way he held his head proudly high. The way his mouth curled when he didn't like something, between snarl and pout. His smell, sandy from the practice fields with a hint of sweat, metal and ramen and a hint of blood._

_It was hard, but then, she was a student of the best genjutsu mistress in Konoha: Hinata remembered Naruto-kun's chakra, the boisterous, overflowing tingle of it, the merest, tiniest tint of red and heat beneath, like water from hot spring._

"_Danzō," she said with Naruto-kun's voice, she said as Naruto-kun would have said. No family name. No honorific. No respect. They all whirled around, leaving their backs vulnerable to Shimura-san. But Shimura-san only stared at her, his hand frozen in the air._

"_Naruto, where did you come from?" Kiba-kun was the first to find his tongue. Before Hinata could even begin to think of an answer Shimura-san's mouth twisted into an ugly grimace._

"_You!" he shouted. "I should have just had you assassinated as the threat to this village that you are and been done with it! You grew without discipline, without purpose, you were ruined courtesy of the old fool! Do you have any idea what you have done? We are tools for the good of the village, nothing less and nothing more!" Spit was running down from the corner of his mouth and he was waving his arms in wide circles. _

"_Tools have nothing to fight for, nothing they feel passionate about. You are truly a sad, sad person if that is what you aspire to be," Hinata said because she felt it was what Naruto-kun would have said. She felt his ghostly hands around herself, felt him holding her up, lending her courage. She believed in his nindo and one day the entire continent would, of this she had no doubts._

"_WE have no right to dreams and ideals of our own! Soldiers only carry out the dreams of their betters! The interests of the village should be placed above all else, even ethics and morals! Especially ethics and morals; those lead to weakness and weakness leads to destruction! You have suborned My people whom I PAINSTAKINGLY crafted into IDEAL tools for the best of Ko…"_

_Shimura-san said no more. He clutched his chest and his voice shimmered away into nothing but moans. His outburst, so violent and so different from his manner up to that point, had startled Hinata's companions so she was the one who stood in front of them now. She had the ring side seat to witnessing Shimura-san's mouth foam like the muzzle of a rabid dog. Oh so slowly he fell on his knees and then to the ground. Hinata allowed the genjutsu to fade with a startled, wet sob, biting her finger to keep the laugh inside. Life was great and terrible. Death had only one card to play, but death was part of life and life played with full deck and marked cards. It always had on__e ace up its sleeve, one more tragicomedy to play out._

_In his cell, Shimura Danzō died of an apoplectic fit._

"_Okay…I didn't expect that. Is he even alive any more?" Sakura-san asked. Hinata's Byakugan was still active and she could have told her that no, he wasn't._

"_No, he isn't. I must compliment your technique, young Hyūga," a voice without any feature that might have set it apart from any voice in a crowd called behind them. They all whirled around._

_The ANBU in a rooster mask stood behind them. Hinata ca__nceled her Byakugan immediately, but she could see his appreciative face in a flash. She wondered what her father would do once he found out about this all._

"_A perfectly natural death, impossible to prove otherwise after the fact. You are rather young to partake in political assassination, but then, your parents weren't that much older, Uchiha-san, Inuzuka-san. I believe Inuzuka Tsume distracted the mark by strip tease while Uchiha Fugaku slipped poison into his drink," he waxed on, without any obvious sign of intending to detain them now that the element of surprise was no longer on their side. "It was rather clever of you to not unmask me. I would be required to turn you over to Ibiki-san if you had," he went on. They all shivered. Hinata didn't tell him she had, even for a fleeting moment. She wondered about the look of satisfaction on his face then._

"_I didn't see you, and you will never reveal to anyone I was beaten by a bunch of Genin," the man said and then picked the keys from Sakura-san's lax hand. They wasted no time, Sakura-san running first and the rest of them after her, towards the sewers._

"_I so didn't need to find that out about my mom!" Kiba-kun moaned as he climbed back in._

"I, uh, I ha-have been w-well," Hinata stuttered, not able to meet Neji's face. Neji felt his mood darken at once. One didn't need to be a trained shinobi to realize something had happened. It hadn't been too disastrous as Hinata-hime was still here, out in the open and not locked into her room by her father, but then again, it might just be that she hadn't been found out yet.

"Hinata-hime, please. I realize my past actions might make it hard for you to trust me, but I am on your side. I need to know what has happened so I can protect you better." And so he would know exactly what he was punishing the Last Uchiha for, and how severely.

* * *

Uzuki Yūgao, proud ANBU of Konohagakure no Sato, was cooking. She wasn't a good cook by any standards, but as a single woman – and how remembering the happy time before those accursed Chûnin exams stung – she had to feed herself or starve. She gathered the minced carrots, onions and green bell pepper in the skillet on top of the pork and stirred. She had thought of Uzumaki Naruto when she had chosen to make yakisoba that night. Not that she had invited the young boy for a dinner, or ever intended to issue such an invitation. She didn't deserve to do so.

She had been so angry, angry and stupid. The devastation Kyūbi had left behind had been crushing. The chakra had burned, burned away the forest and the old oak trees, hundreds of years old, had flown like matchsticks in the wind. The ground shook and great chasms opened, swallowing the defenders of the village, and several parts of the great wall crumbled. It had been fire and storm, chaos and death as men and women had thrown their lives away to stall the great beast at least a little, at least half a second so the one who came after them might earn another, just a little more time for the Yondaime to arrive. Then, miraculously, it had been over.

Yūgao, thrown aside by a careless swish of a great tail, not even worth an afterthought, had wandered towards the place she had last seen the Yondaime, only to happen upon a red-haired body.

She wasn't alone there, of course, at that time the place was swarming with people running away and shouting and crying. And there laid Uzumaki Kushina, her hair red and the grass red under her and the reddest of all her stomach, cruelly torn open. The cry of a child reached her ears…

There had been rumors of Kushina-nee back in Uzushiokagure, how _she_was the one. Yūgao hadn't known what to think and she hadn't wanted to ask, hadn't known how to ask. Now she knew and the worst had happened. Kushina-nee was dead, their beloved Yondaime was dead, hell, it would have been easier to count those who weren't in her shell-shocked eyes. And there had been a baby.

Yūgao hadn't ever thought Naruto-san was the Kyūbi or any such rubbish. She was from Uzushiogakure, she knew better. But she hadn't wanted to have anything to do with the boy either, had gone as far as to change her name. From "spiral" or "whirlpool", the kanji in her name had changed into the fourth month of the lunar calendar; it had gone well with the kanji for her first name: "moon flower". She had given up the name of her forefathers and pride hadn't allowed her to recant that decision even after that truly terrible nightmare where all her ancestors had reviled her for disowning them.

Now she knew her folly; it hadn't been one, great epiphany, but silently rising tide of shame ever since the Chûnin Exams where Uzumaki Naruto had been thrust to her face. She had neglected a child of her adored nee-chan for nothing but a petty need to have someone to blame. She hadn't really carried a grudge all these years, but she had been so busy fulfilling her duty as an ANBU and so wrapped in her romance she hadn't given Naruto-san much thought. And now that she had, it was too late. She hadn't stood by Naruto-san's side when he had been in need and thus she didn't deserve the privilege now that he had plenty

And then there had been a massive operation against the Root. Danzō-san had been the first to fall from grace and there were rumors of the Hokage having his entire council thoroughly vetted. Those in the know had whispered Uzumaki, Uzumaki, Uzumaki, how he had somehow been in the eye of the storm – when was there a village-wide conspiracy he wasn't part of, somehow? They whispered how he had gone missing and Senju Tsunade-sama had burst into the Hokage's office and threatened to geld him! Yūgao had been beside herself with worry, trying to scavenge what little pieces of information she could get her hands on– and this evening Naruto-san had finally returned.

"I only needed to know he would be alright," she told the bowl of ramen she was cooking. Predictably it didn't answer her; talking to inanimate objects was bad, but if they started talking back then you were in trouble. She added noodles to the skillet, poured water over them and covered the skillet, turning down the heat to low and steam for a few minutes. That was when someone knocked on her door.

She wasn't expecting anyone. This was Konoha, but a careless ANBU was soon a dead ANBU and so Yūgao didn't go straight to the door, but rather to a small cupboard to the left of it. There was a small periscope that allowed her to see who was at the door without standing in front of the peephole and leaving her eye vulnerable to a stab.

There, in front of her house in the long shadows, stood a Genin in a bright orange jumpsuit with a dark-haired boy who at first glance looked eerily similar to Uchiha Sasuke right beside him. Uzumaki Naruto. Yūgao was certain that like the sun would rise again the next morning and the moon she had named herself after would wane and the fill out again that Naruto-san knew. Somehow he found out and now he was here to demand an explanation. It was like a sentence and Yūgao was a lawful woman who believed in serving what she had reaped. She stepped back into the hallway, inhaled once, plastered a pleasant look on her face and opened the door.

"What a nice surprise, Uzumaki-san. Would you care to come in?" she asked. She hadn't intended to say that, but then she hadn't had the faintest clue what she could say to the child she had disowned.

"Of course, that's why I came here. This is Sai; he's my friend," Naruto-san said and stepped in, dragging the boy named Sai with him. Sai-san gave her a wary look and she turned her hands palms outward, a subtly submissive gesture. She didn't harbor any evil intentions towards Naruto.

"Yūgao-san, I heard from Tenko-chan you are actually Uzumaki," Naruto-san started before she could even close the door behind them. Yūgao froze with her hand on the door knob, wondering what to say, what she could say. There were so many apologies, but what she blurted out was: "Jōnouchi Tenko? But she is dead!"

"No, she was just grabbed by that bastard Danzō. She went by Tomiko for years, I think, but she is alright now. She promised to pay you a visit." Naruto fidgeted, scraping the carpet with his feet. He hadn't even taken his sandals off yet. "So, are you my cousin?" His blue eyes were shining.

Yūgao looked into those eyes and she realized they were shining not from happiness, but because of tears held back. There was a grim determination frozen in Naruto-san's silly grin and suddenly Yūgao realized just how much courage this must have taken, to come and knock to the door of the woman who had made very clear she wanted nothing to do with him. But she did, oh how she did now! Without thinking about what she was doing she gathered Naruto-san into her arms. Questions about Tenko could wait, this couldn't.

"Yes, I am. I am so terribly sorry I have been such a disappointment as a relative, Uzumaki-san. I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me one day," she pleaded. Naruto shuddered in her arms and then something changed. She couldn't see it, but she could feel; it was like the sun was shining after a rainy day.

Naruto stepped back and clasped his hands behind his back as he made the introductions: "That's great! I'm Uzumaki Naruto, my likes are my friends and Hibari-sensei and Kakashi-sensei, gardening and Sakura-chan and ramen. My dislikes are idiot people who judge others for something that isn't their fault, brainwashing masterminds and idiot parents who get women pregnant and then leave them to raise their children alone in a hostile village and the time it takes for instant ramen to cook and my dream is to become the greatest Hokage ever and protect everyone in Konoha!" Yūgao was taken aback by this info dump and she fleetingly wondered why the fathers of illegitimate children would annoy Naruto-san so, but what truly shook her to the core, what made her feel both better and yet a complete heel…

"That's it? You just forgive me like I did nothing?" Though that had been the problem, hadn't it? She had done exactly nothing for so many years. Naruto looked up at her, frowning yet not angry.

"Well, you are really sorry now, aren't you? I could carry grudge and sulk a few years, I guess, but then I couldn't be family with you so I would only hurt myself. Hate is like that; it never does any good to anyone."

Yūgao remembered Sabaku no Gaara; she had been one of those dispatched to follow the obviously unstable Suna Genin while he stayed in Konoha and she could proudly attest Gaara had never disappeared on her watch; not all could claim the same. She remembered those green eyes, hungry and rabid and hurting. Eyes that hadn't learned hate only hurt in the long run like vinegar poured on open wound. She hadn't known why a boy so young would have eyes like those back then, but in hindsight…

"We didn't deserve you, but I'm glad we have you anyway," she said. Naruto-san seemed taken aback by this and Sai-san muttered something about a compliment plan and desensitization, but before she could ask a girl's voice hollered from the street outside.

"Uzumaki Naruto, you utter jerk!" shouted one Haruno Sakura and ran straight into Yūgao's house without asking for permission, tackling Naruto with a flying hug so he fell against Yūgao and would have fallen on the floor if she hadn't caught him.

"Sakura-chan," Naruto-san mumbled as Haruno-san fisted the front of his jumpsuit and burrowed her head against his shoulder.

"You utter jerk, you disappear for days and we have to hear from Kakashi-sensei you are back because you can't come to us, oh no, and why didn't you tell us about Kyūbi, did you really think we could ever hate you? You inconsiderate ass, never make us worry so again!" she shouted and peppered him with feeble, ineffective hits to the chest; Haruno-san's hands were shaking badly. Naruto-san looked like someone had hit him over the head with a hammer.

"Sa-Sakura-chan? Y-you know about…" he stuttered, red as a tomato.

"Yes, we do now. Neji-san figured the truth out," said Uchiha Sasuke who entered her house in a much more dignified manner, greeting her briefly and taking his shoes off. "You are our teammate, didn't you think we would worry when you disappeared like that? Kami-sama knows some feeble old grandmother could have beaten you to death with a spatula." His voice was dryer than Suna's desert. Naruto-san sputtered, now in anger, but before he could say a word Yūgao laughed.

It was years of pain she had clutched close to her chest now released. Only when Naruto-san touched her face did she realize she was crying and she didn't care a whit.

"What is that smell?" Haruno-san asked. It was then that Yūgao remembered the dinner she had left simmering under a cover.

"My yakisoba," she managed to sob. Naruto-san was distraught over ramen being burned and Yūgao laughed some more. The people of Konoha had poured vinegar on their wounds far too long. Now it was finally time to heal.

* * *

**What Happened to Them Ever After?**

**Nakamura Fū**

In the end Fū was allowed to take that trip with Naruto. It was kind of a long story, but it boiled down on her Kage having it with parental complaints.

Fū attempted the sit-out strike – without actually sitting on the desk – in the mission office and much to her surprise she was indulged; either out of sheer surprise, or because the issue wasn't important enough to antagonize the precious living weapon over, or both. It was ironic that once she had decided to do her own thing she managed to get the approval of both Yukimura-sensei and Nishimura-obaasama; her teacher thought her childish cheerfulness a good sign and her caretaker found her feminine interest in children appropriate. Encouraged, Fūdecided to continue this in between serious missions as long as she could get away with it.

It turned out to be for two months and seven D-ranks. The children didn't complain, but the parents were petrified. The Takigakure Parents' Association drowned the village administration with complaints and petitions until the Kage bribed Fū to give up D-ranks by allowing her to journey to Sunagakure – under her teacher's surveillance.

Gaara was bemused when Naruto dragged Fū to him for introductions, but they ended up getting along quite well. Naruto and Yukimura-sensei got along well enough, much to Fū's relief.

**Tomiko/Jōnouchi Tenko**

Tenko had been declared MIA and later KIA seven years earlier so re-entering her into the village registry was a bureaucratic nightmare. She got away with, technically speaking, having gone missing with a slap to the wrist, thanks to Sarutobi still feeling guilty over his actions regarding Naruto and Naruto's support of her, but she was on parole for a year. She didn't mind. She changed her name to Uzumaki, got re-acquainted with Uzumaki Yūgao and attended counseling under the supervision of Senju Tsunade.

**Yamanaka Fū**

Fū was given parole, along with Jōnouchi Tenko, Okubo Hibari and Sai. After his parole was over he journeyed to Kumogakure to apologize to Nigaki Mika and the son he had never known. His son, Nigaki Hiro, turned out to be a blacksmith's apprentice instead of an aspiring shinobi. This was as much as he found out before Mika chased him away from her home with shuriken, kunai, a frying pan, ninja wire, creative use of genjutsu and expletives that would have turned Hidan's ears blue.

Fū ended up making six trips to Kumo. The first two times Mika tried to kill him, the third to geld him. The fourth she yelled at him, the fifth she first yelled and then slept with him. This led to her becoming pregnant, again, and when Fū attempted to apologize for the sixth time she held him at sword point and demanded he make an honest woman out of her. He was more than glad to do so.

Mika finally accepted apology number twenty seven.

**Sai**

When Uzumaki Naruto introduced Sai to his teammates he managed to insult them both by calling Sakura Ugly and Sasuke Doll; his first attempt at friendly banter was an epic fail. He occasionally trained with Team Kakashi and those occasions got pretty regular once Naruto learned that he only had to sing Hibari-sensei's praises for Kakashi to get annoyed and determined to out-do her – at least for that day. Sai attempted to befriend Nara Shikamaru in an attempt to gain intel on how to prevent Naruto from turning into a Shikamaru, much to the young chûnin's annoyance, and Yamanaka Ino was convinced that Sai was flirting with her, but Sai's opinion on this has not been asked.

**Okubo Hibari**

Okubo Hibari hadn't at any point disappeared from the official ANBU so her re-integration to the village wasn't a problem, but she was made to resign from her position as a punishment for taking part in a criminal conspiracy. This made her feel rather naked and disjointed, but she braved the village without her mask and befriended Umino Iruka who she bonded with over Naruto and his training. She still trained her former kohai in between missions and gleefully helped him to goad Hatake Kakashi and Jiraiya once she realized the effect she had on them.

At Yamanaka Fū's wedding she decided to give up her grudge on her father and never think of the man again. This was easier said than done, but over the course of next three years she got over the issue. She became a Jōnin sensei, since by teaching Naruto and Sai she had learned she enjoyed training the youth. The Mori clan tried to assassinate her once they learned of her existence, but the attempt was unsuccessful – and she wasn't above rubbing it to their faces by mailing the three Jōnin hitai-ite back to Iwa. In the Iwa bingo book she goes by the name Okubo the Evil Counterpart and it amuses her greatly.

**Hyūga Neji**

He tried to kill Uchiha Sasuke the day after he returned to the village, three point five minutes after Hinata folded and told him what had transpired between the time Neji had left the village and the time he had returned.

**Uzumaki Naruto**

Naruto became the first and only person ever who could honestly claim to have benefited from his time in the Root. His chakra control was better (though he was still very much in awe of Fū-chan after she told him of the biwa string exercise), he had learned a cool forbidden vampire technique to make bombs, and Hibari-sensei's voice in his head proved to be much more useful than Kyūbi's ever. Even better, he was his bright, optimistic self, a fact that hasn't ceased to intrigue Morino Ibiki. Tsunade had to forbid him from attempting to interview Naruto under pain of invasive rectal examinations.

He was honestly surprised by how much he had been missed, and by how many people. He wasted no time asking Sakura-chan for a date and was turned down as always, but even that couldn't darken his mood as he learned of the mass migration to the Hokage's office on his behalf. He will deny to the day he dies that he cried then.

Naruto was also very, very pleased to learn he could have a clan of his own. He wasted no time giving Tenko the right to Uzumaki name and badgering Yūgao into changing hers back. What he thought when Sarutobi told him of his father, well, that is a tale for another time.

* * *

AN: Finally done! This was our inspirational tale of Why Accepting Messianic People Into Your Conspiracy Makes You Too Dumb To Live. With Totally Awesome Gods That Are Much Better Than The Evil Bunny. This last chapter was betaed by wonderful Mystic777.

Yamato's mask is a cat of some sorts. I chose to make it a Lynx. The quote "Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love" is in truth from the pen of Hamilton Wright Mabie. I just borrowed it.


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